United States 

Institute of Peace

The Road Ahead

Lessons in Nation Building from

Japan, Germany, and Afghanistan

for Postwar Iraq

Ray Salvatore Jennings
Peaceworks No. 49. First published April 2003.

The views expressed in this report are those of the author alone.

They do not necessarily reflect views of the United States Institute of Peace.

UNITED STATES INSTITUTE OF PEACE

1200 17th Street NW, Suite 200

Washington, DC 20036-3011

Phone: 202-457-1700

Fax: 202-429-6063

E-mail: usip_requests@usip.org

Web: www.usip.org
Contents

Summary 5

1. Introduction 9

2. The Costs of Failing to Win the Peace in Postwar Iraq 11

3. Totalitarian Liberals, Top-Down Revolution, and

a Work in Progress 13

◗ The Occupation of Germany 13

◗ The Occupation of Japan 15

◗ The Ongoing Engagement in Afghanistan 19

4. The Road Here: Observations and Lessons from

Germany, Japan, and Afghanistan 25

5. The Road Ahead in Iraq:

Nation Building and Postwar Peace 31

Notes 36

About the Author 39

About the Institute 41
Summary

With the war in Iraq has come the responsibility to win the peace. In military campaigns, enormous resources may be marshaled at a moment’s

notice, including professionally trained soldiers supported by the latest

technology and an intricate and elaborate global infrastructure specifically designed to

fight and win wars. There is no analogous infrastructure or clarity of mission for contending with the aftermath of war. Indeed, the U.S. approach to postconflict reconstruction abroad is low-tech, inconsistent, improvised, and too often undone by a

preoccupation with domestic politics and an instinctual aversion to nation building.

“We have done our part,” military commanders are heard to say to aid workers and

other postconflict professionals. “Now you do yours.” Despite soaring rhetoric committing the United States as strongly to postwar peacebuilding as to military intervention,

the track record of U.S. follow-through is disappointing.

The inadequacy of postwar interventions does not necessarily result from a lack of

expertise. Much has been learned from previous postconflict engagements about what is

required to get the job done in such environments. What has been missing is not knowledge but perceived self-interest, political will, and an adequate attention span—elements

of commitment that will mark or frustrate success in postwar Iraq. Military occupation

of a defeated foe is more complex and far more difficult than the commitments that

have so tested the United States in places such as Bosnia, Kosovo, Somalia, and Haiti. Is

the United States prepared to stay the course to secure, govern, rebuild, and democratize

war-torn Iraq? 

The United States has fundamentally reshaped its doctrine of military engagement

without similarly reforming its commitment and capacity to stabilize and transform

postconflict environments. In this dissonance between an overdeveloped ability to wage

and win war and an anemic facility for winning peace is the potential for a reversal of

war gains, a subverting of the country’s long-term security goals, and a deflating of

ambitions to reform the norms of international order and recast the U.S. role in the

world. Losing a peace in Iraq could damage the image and reputation of the United

States for years to come and make it more difficult for the United States to leverage its

unprecedented power in the future. The United States must carefully consider what it

takes to get the job done, brace for the unexpected, and go the distance in postconflict

Iraq, mindful of its successes and failures in such endeavors in the past.

The last military occupations of comparable scope and complexity were the post–

World War II military governments in Germany and Japan. The ongoing postwar intervention in Afghanistan demonstrates the latest postwar engagement in an environment

that most resembles what the United States may encounter in Iraq. Afghanistan is an

Islamic nation fractured by factional violence and riddled with insecurity and crime

while playing host to a simultaneous hot war on terror and a postwar reconstruction

5
effort. Germany, Japan, and Afghanistan offer several positive and negative lessons on

appropriate policy and behavior during a period of military governance in Iraq.

1.In the immediate postwar period, security and rule of law are essential to the success of

humanitarian and reconstruction initiatives as well as political reform. It is not sufficient to separate and contain warring factions—security that counts also requires a

constabulary capacity, civilian policing, and the ability to arrest, detain, and try

offenders in a fair manner.

2. Recognize the political implications of each decision, minimize arrogance, and avoid the

establishment of a postwar caste system. Inconsistencies between U.S. democratization rhetoric and U.S. support for factional proxies have undermined U.S. credibility

in Afghanistan. The incongruence between rhetoric and action in both post–World

War II occupations carried consequences in each instance. Attitudes of superiority,

informal caste systems, and perceived disparity between words and behavior may

prove disastrous in Iraq, where every move will carry political significance and

where international legitimacy for occupation is in short supply.

3. Avoid demonstrating suspicion of all Iraqis, while isolating and defining Ba’athists and

other Saddam loyalists as a criminal class who have betrayed the trust of the Iraqi people. Saddam Hussein and the Ba’athists are widely regarded as criminals, not as

national benefactors. Treating all Iraqis as collectively guilty of the regime’s crimes

not only would be inappropriate but also would confirm suspicions about U.S. ethnocentrism and imperial ambition. The United States should instead expand civil

liberties, promote public participation in political decision making and community

affairs, and purge Ba’athists from high-ranking civil and military positions. Such an

approach will help to make popular forces less likely to undermine assistance initiatives and more likely to embrace reconstruction and to recognize that reform will be

a long-term process.

4. Near-term participatory “peace dividend” reconstruction initiatives will prove beneficial in managing rising expectations, avoiding dependency, contributing to pluralism,

and drawing public support away from possible spoilers. In Iraq, large, highly visible

projects to repair transportation, water, health, and telecommunications systems will

certainly be necessary; however, the United States must also not neglect the contributions that can be made by Iraq’s social capital (its indigenous capacities) not only

to large-scale projects but also to smaller, community-based relief and reconstruction endeavors.

5. During the very first weeks of postconflict operations establish clear policies for civilmilitary interaction regarding relief and development initiatives. The distribution of

humanitarian aid and the implementation of development projects will occur

simultaneously during the first weeks of postconflict operations. Such tasks call for

significant civil-military interaction, which in turn requires clear policies to ensure

that U.S. military contingents and nongovernmental organizations understand each

other’s role and can collaborate effectively. Too often, policies are unclear or fashioned on the spot, creating confusion and mutual hostility between the military and

the NGOs. If the military and NGOs, as well as the Iraqi people, are not to lose valu6 Summary
able time and important opportunities, guidelines for civil-military interaction must

be clearly established early on.

6. Form national advisory bodies composed of Iraqis not associated with the past regime

at the earliest possible moment. These bodies should be succeeded by a variety of

supervised participatory selection processes at local and regional levels to choose

delegates to a broadly representative national transitional council—a council that

will be advisory in its first months but will slowly assume greater responsibility.

7. Do not underestimate the needs, challenges, and time required for postconflict reconstruction and nation building. The United States should brace for a long-term

commitment in Iraq—perhaps even longer than the seven years required for the

occupations in Japan and Germany. The anticipated six-month commitment currently being described by Pentagon planners will be too short a period to consolidate the most volatile threats to the peace process and to return significant

accountable governing authority to Iraqi institutions.

8. Ensure the prompt and thorough political decontamination and de-Ba’athification of

Iraq. The processes of purging the military and purging civilian institutions often

proceed differently, with clear lines of authority and command responsibility often

making it easier to remove military officers than to purge their civilian counterparts.

In addition, there are differences between “vetting in” individuals (judging them

clean enough to take up their duties) and “vetting out” individuals (dismissing or

charging them with crimes or activities unbecoming to their position). Typically, a

deep process of vetting out occurs first and is best performed with speed. Personnel,

intelligence, and military service files—once they have been interpreted and evaluated—are invaluable to the vetting process. What remains of these files should be

secured without delay.

Success in postwar Iraq may be even more difficult to achieve than winning the peace

in Germany and Japan proved to be—and the attempt will certainly be far more complicated than the limited U.S. engagement in Afghanistan. The German and Japanese occupations came at the end of long wars with large numbers of troops and a considerable

logistics capacity deployed across the theater and available to pivot toward postwar initiatives. There was ample planning and legitimacy, and little anti-Americanism or regional

instability to be concerned with. The United States had prevailed in a global war and was

not, as it is today, in a continuing “war on terror” with an indeterminate foe. The country

was not in a fishbowl surrounded by nations and cultures eager to find fault with its actions. Domestically, Americans who had sacrificed in the war years saw the occupations as

the obligatory closure of a terrible but necessary episode. U.S. intentions were rarely questioned at home or abroad.

In Iraq, the United States will be held to unfamiliar standards in difficult circumstances. Is the United States ready? Postwar interventions in Germany, Japan, and

Afghanistan offer examples of occupation environments and the character of commitment that postconflict environments routinely require.

Summary 7
One

Introduction

Military planners have demonstrated that rapid deployment of special operations personnel and judicious use of traditional military assets designed

to contend with every reasonable contingency are appropriate for modern

wars with countries such as Iraq. A similar doctrine is also appropriate in the wake of

such wars, especially during the critical eighteen-month window that begins with the first

day of the peace, when postwar environments are most vulnerable to instability and a

relapse into violence. In Iraq, well-planned, flexible, and effective postwar initiatives will

stabilize the country, empower Iraqi moderates, and help the United States to contain

tensions and influence political developments in the region and around the world.

Conversely, half measures and limited endurance may lead to the collapse of the Iraqi

state, the eventual rise of another despot, or crippling economic uncertainty with global

implications. The stakes are extraordinarily high in the Middle East as Washington seeks

to use unprecedented U.S. power to redefine the organizing principles of international

order.

The complexity of simultaneously managing threats to security, political and economic

postwar transitions, humanitarian crises, and daunting reconstruction tasks among traumatized and exhausted populations is consistently underestimated. Current planning,

taking into account the discrepancies between State Department and Pentagon time lines,

foresees a six- to twelve-month military occupation as necessary to restore order, contain

humanitarian crises, rebuild the economy, and create conditions necessary for democracy

in Iraq. The lessons of history, from the post–World War II military occupations of Japan

and Germany to the current engagement in Afghanistan, suggest this is overly optimistic.

Self-sustaining peace and stability are still years away in Afghanistan. The German and

Japanese occupations were thought necessary for several months at most. Each lasted

seven years.

The post–World War II military occupations and the continuing intervention in

Afghanistan illustrate particularly relevant lessons for consolidation of the peace in Iraq.

The United States entered Germany on September 11, 1944, with military governance

units following on the heels of combat troops. By May 1945, Allied occupation of German

territory was complete. Within days of full occupation, U.S. civil affairs units sent detachments into every town, establishing security and U.S. authority in each population center

within the U.S. sector. Within weeks, denazification, control of displaced and refugee populations, protection of records and files, restoration of local governance institutions, and

administration of the day-to-day affairs of the population began to consume and challenge U.S. forces, despite over two years of preparation for just such eventualities.

Much the same occurred in Japan. U.S forces began entering Japan just days after

Emperor Hirohito surrendered, on August 15, 1945. Within weeks, General Douglas 9
10

MacArthur established his command in Tokyo and began an astonishing round of reforms. He too sent troops and civil affairs officers on rounds of motorcycle diplomacy

throughout the country to establish security and to explain U.S. intentions while managing local expectations of the military government. In both occupations, combat troops

rapidly transitioned into a governance presence. Soldiers were issued handbooks detailing

the rules of engagement with local populations as well as appropriate responses to administrative dilemmas, the structure of local governance institutions, methods to disarm local

police, and the manner in which civil disturbances should be settled. But U.S. military

commands in occupied Germany and Japan were consistently staggered by the enormity

of the challenges in the war-to-peace transition and were tested from day one by the unexpected. Despite long years of preparation to occupy a defeated foe, domestic support for

occupation, and high international legitimacy for military governance of Germany and

Japan, winning the peace proved far more difficult than Washington had originally envisioned.

Afghanistan reflects the degree to which military doctrine has changed from the

post–World War II era. U.S. military personnel now spend even more time refining their

war-fighting skills and even less learning how to work with civilians and civilian institutions. Nation building and commitment to long-term peace operations have become

politically inexpedient. Proxyism coupled with limited engagements constrained by the

exigencies of domestic politics has contributed to schizophrenic engagements in Haiti,

Somalia, Bosnia, Kosovo, and now Afghanistan. In Afghanistan, a security gap and military factionalism undermine reform and consolidation of the peace. Moreover, the attention-deficit disorder of donor countries, exemplified by the United States, promises to

short-circuit peacebuilding while undermining citizens’ trust in the surety of a better future.

U.S. experience in postwar Germany, Japan, and Afghanistan demonstrates success,

failure, and the hard lessons learned in the course of contending with complex emergencies, postwar reconstruction, international opinion, domestic political imperatives, and

indigenous capacities for change. The following sections consider the serious challenges

confronting postwar reconstruction in Iraq, examine the U.S. engagements in postwar

Germany and Japan and in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban, and ask what these

three cases can tell us about how the United States might best contend with the aftermath

of the war against Iraq. A synopsis of these lessons concludes the report.

Introduction
Two

The Costs of Failing to Win the Peace in

Postwar Iraq

The challenges in postwar Iraq will be formidable. Iraq is not a failed state nor

is it experiencing significant civil war, but both may result from a shorthand

approach to postwar reconstruction, a doctrine of limited military engagement,

and poor anticipation of postconflict security requirements. Iraq is a sophisticated country, not a struggling developing nation on the brink of disintegration. The country’s

infrastructure, though already worn from neglect and additionally damaged by war,

remains serviceable. Natural resources, arable land, a sophisticated diaspora, and the educational level of Iraqis are important national assets. More than 70 percent of the population lives in or near cities, where the culture is predominantly secular and distinctly

urban.

Yet the structural integrity of the nation under Saddam Hussein has depended on fear,

violence, illicit oil revenue, and the illegitimate authority of single-party politics. If the

United States is not prepared to act decisively in the first weeks of occupation and over the

next several years, uncertainty will rapidly fill the space created as the architecture of the

Ba’ath Party’s authority is dismantled. There will be constant pressures toward political

fragmentation and social division. Challenges to U.S. authority will continue. If this disorder develops into large-scale violence and is combined with the brutal lethality of modern

weapons, the result may be one of the toughest political and humanitarian crises to date.

A postwar scenario in Iraq may include loyalists of Saddam Hussein or looters damaging critical intelligence, property, and police files as well as important elements of the national infrastructure. Shiites, Kurds, Assyrians, and Chaldeans, persecuted religious and

ethnic groups that make up more than 80 percent of the population of Iraq, may seize important facilities and territory. Kurds in particular may attempt to formalize their independence in formal and informal ways, despite the best efforts of U.S. representatives to

curtail their ambition. Kirkuk may remain a flashpoint requiring a heavy security presence to prevent Kurds from exercising unilateral control over the city, to settle inevitable

property disputes, and to calm Turkish fears over Kurdish intentions to revive dormant

passion for a unified, cross-border Kurdish state. A desire for political change, uncertainty

over U.S. intentions, unleashed postwar expectations, and Hussein’s retribalization of

Iraqi society may all contribute to a situation in which local support for factional leaders

constantly shifts, like a weather vane in variable winds, as the military fortunes and political reputations of those leaders fluctuate.

No faction in Iraq, including the remnants of the Sunni-dominated military, is likely to

be strong enough to establish complete control over the country. Without an external

presence able to impose at least temporary order in the postwar power vacuum, violent

political competition will be inevitable.

Iraq’s critical social capital will require continued protection as well. Iraqi technocrats

and their families, many of whom are Ba’ath Party members of convenience, may have 11
12

fled, disappeared, or attempted—with varying levels of success—to renounce their ties to

the party. Already strained basic utilities, transportation, and communications infrastructure, some further damaged by the war, may become unreliable, and local governance and

what rule of law that exists will likely deteriorate. In such conditions, potential political

moderates, important to a return of sovereignty, would be marginalized and the trust,

participation, and sense of hope that are essential for legitimate governance would be

overwhelmed. Without providing visible support for pluralism or protection of basic

human rights as Iraq transitions from war to peace, the United States would be more

vulnerable to charges of imperial intent and geostrategic subterfuge and would lose the

credibility necessary to encourage reforms elsewhere in the Islamic world. Distrust of the

United States among those who might someday legitimately rule Iraq will intensify.

Strongman policies of the past would continue, complicating the U.S. exit strategy and

eroding the security environment necessary for development to occur.

As during the war, so thereafter, every action the United States takes will be profoundly

political, with operations from the first day of the peace occurring in a fishbowl. The

United States will be held responsible for political emergencies, humanitarian crises, factional fighting, and any general breakdown in order from the moment the U.S.-led coalition assumes power.

These are the kinds of postwar contingencies that should be anticipated with as much

vigor as is commonplace in the conduct of war. What is clear from experience in places

such as Afghanistan, Bosnia, Kosovo, Haiti, Lebanon, Grenada, Panama, and Somalia is

that winning the peace is never certain and a very difficult thing to do. As Anthony

Cordesman writes in his report Lessons of Afghanistan,“Even the most impressive tactical

or strategic military victory can lose much or all of its meaning if it is followed by a diplomatic and political power vacuum.”1

Doubtless the postwar scenario described here does not account for every uncertainty

that may emerge in Iraq. But with the costs of failing to win the peace so high, it is reasonable to assume—based on experience—that successful postwar reconstruction will not be

easy or predictable.

The Costs of Failing to Win the Peace
Three

Totalitarian Liberals, Top-Down Revolution,

and a Work in Progress

The Occupation of Germany

General Lucius Clay, the U.S. viceroy in postwar Germany, was an engineer by training

and also an expert at reconstruction. His military experience consisted of assignments

with the Army Corps of Engineers during the New Deal and as the army’s chief of matériel during World War II. Clay was chosen under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to

take charge of the U.S. sector in southern occupied Germany. To the north lay the Soviet

zone. To the west and northwest lay the French and British sectors. Clay ultimately assumed his post under the new president, Harry S. Truman.

Michael Beschloss’s book The Conquerors describes how Clay was constrained in carrying out his mission by Washington’s micromanagement and by JCS 1067, the blueprint

for U.S. occupation that limited the kinds of assistance available to postwar Germany. This

directive from the Joint Chiefs of Staff was punitive and restrictive, reflecting the belief

that Germans bore collective guilt for the war and that stark recognition of the consequences of their actions would cure the militarism that had led German citizens to engage

in two successive conflicts. Clay was able to use his expertise to restore public utilities, clear

roads, and move rations and supplies to prevent starvation and disease, but he was prohibited from providing economic or reconstruction assistance of any kind.2

Instead, Clay was to reestablish the basic necessities of life, prevent sabotage of important facilities, and ensure that war production capacities were demolished. Above all, Clay

was to preside over the denazification of the German psyche. Nazi influence in the press,

business affairs, financial institutions, and schools was to be eliminated. Textbooks were

revised, business and financial cartels dismantled, and reparations extracted from what

remained of the German economy. Nazi Party members were removed down to the local

level, while military, intelligence, and propaganda organizations and those associations

dedicated to nationalist causes and remembering war dead were dissolved. In all, more

than three million Germans would be charged with a variety of offenses for their wartime

actions and affiliations out of a total of thirteen million Germans who were reviewed in

the U.S. sector.3

Beschloss notes that Clay was careful to understand the dominant sympathies of the

time. Talk of reconstruction in Germany in the years immediately following the war

threatened the careers of even the most decorated brass. In late 1945, General George Patton, governor of the province of Bavaria, remarked to the press that “more than half the

German people were Nazis and we would be in a hell of a fix if we removed all Nazi party

members from office.” The resulting row back in Washington forced Eisenhower to relieve

him.4

There was similar enthusiasm in Washington and among occupation government staff

to remind Germans of their defeat and second-class status. Outside the Grand Hotel in 13
Nuremberg, in the heart of the U.S. sector, a sign announced that the building was for the

exclusive use of U.S. military personnel and that entry was forbidden to “Germans, dogs

and displaced persons.”“Anyone violating the above,” it was written,“will be booked by

the Military Police for proper disciplinary action.”5

In 1949, newspaper correspondent Freda Utley worried that the military government’s

directives and the seduction of young Americans by excesses of power and status they

would never dream of possessing back home would nazify the occupation government.

She labeled many of Clay’s staff “totalitarian liberals” and scorned the incompatibility of

liberation rhetoric with Jim Crow practices and the caste system she observed.6 Germans

accused military government personnel of exhibiting the same “master race” attitudes that

the United States was there to eliminate from German consciousness.“We expected Russian lawlessness,” Germans told Utley,“and we knew what to expect from the British who

aim to eliminate Germany as a competitor, but we once believed the Americans were different.”7

Despite this treatment of Germans and the widespread perception by State Department experts that German citizens were incapable of democracy, Clay was charged with

imbuing the public with an appreciation of U.S.-style governance. He appointed three local Germans as regional administrators in the U.S. sector before British, French, or Soviet

commands thought to do so. The appointed Germans were “clean,” never having been in

the Nazi Party or accused of other criminal activity. Clay asked these administrative advisers to assist him in drafting a variety of policy documents for his review and to help him

fashion cadres of untainted lower-level German functionaries to counsel their U.S. military superiors. With the advice of these Germans, Clay and his deputies created, among

other things, the Ministry for Political Liberation to oversee the work of quasi-judicial

bodies staffed by handpicked Germans entrusted to try lower-level war crimes suspects.

Clay also counted on advice from these “clean” Germans as he ordered his regional commanders to disband and then reestablish police forces employing Germans who had never

been in the Nazi Party. These quasi courts, incipient local administrations, and police

forces modeled on local control and decentralized power formed the basis for the development of these institutions for decades to come.8

During the winter of 1945–46, Clay grew increasingly concerned about the growing influence of the Soviets.“There is no choice,” Clay often repeated,“between becoming a

communist on 1500 calories and a believer in democracy on 1000 calories.” Clay exploited

a loophole in JCS 1067 to increase daily humanitarian rations to 1,500 calories per day. He

warned Washington that without additional assistance, growing food shortages and economic misery would pave the way to a communist Germany. Clay’s appeal, economic

stagnation in Europe, and sluggish recovery on the Continent prompted Washington to

reevaluate the punitive style of the first months of occupation and to reconsider doubts

over whether Germans were able to meaningfully participate in the management of their

own affairs.9

Still, a change in occupation policy was slow in coming. By May 1946, the German

economy had deteriorated further and Clay feared the worst for the coming winter. Each

sector in postwar Germany was governed by a separate occupation government, each

managing its own affairs and rarely coordinating economic or political initiatives with the

14 Totalitarian Liberals, Top-Down Revolution, and a Work in Progress
others. The entire country was still dependent on large amounts of humanitarian aid, and

little was being done to begin local production of basic necessities or to otherwise alleviate

the need for continuous injections of emergency aid. The rest of Europe, previously dependent on the industrial base of prewar Germany, continued its listless recovery. This

vulnerability of Europe, the destitution of the German public, and continued concern

over Soviet intentions moved the Joint Chiefs of Staff to join Clay in lobbying Truman

to change course.

By winter, Truman had sacked Secretary of State James Byrnes, replacing him with

General George Marshall. By the summer of 1947, Marshall had successfully made the argument that JCS 1067 must be rescinded on “national security grounds” and replaced by

JCS 1779. Drawing on earlier memos from Secretary of War Henry Stimson, Marshall

pushed aside concerns over denazification and punitive reminders of defeat. The Marshall

Plan saw the reconstruction of Germany and Europe in geostrategic terms, a strong viable

German economy and democracy being necessary not only for enhanced security against

the Soviets but also for the eventual exit of occupation troops. The course correction had

taken nearly two years to determine, but it was dramatic once it began.

Under JCS 1779, Clay would eventually rehabilitate more than 90 percent of Germans

purged under JCS 1067. He further increased food rations and began to actively dismantle

the most egregious elements of the two-class system so visible in earlier years. Common

concerns about security and the need to reconstruct the German industrial areas of the

Ruhr and Rhineland for Europe’s benefit moved the French, British, and U.S. sectors to

combine into one entity. Together they unified currency and license plates, defined a flag,

produced identity documentation, and restored local governments. The unification of the

Allied sectors and the visible commitment to reconstruction cheered Germans, as did

what were widely regarded as heroic measures to deliver aid to Berlin during the June

1948 Soviet blockade of the city. For many Germans, this commitment to reform was a

long-awaited congruence of rhetoric, expectations, and behavior. Rapid improvement in

the standard of living in the Allied sectors accelerated progress toward political goals.

In May 1949, Konrad Adenauer worked with Allied military personnel to draft the Basic Law, the equivalent of a constitution for what would become the Federal Republic of

Germany. Avoiding the word “constitution” in order not to condone the division of the

German state between east and west, the Basic Law was approved by the new combined

Allied military council and was distributed among nascent indigenous institutions created

with the cautious introduction of democracy. No indigenous German political body existed to ratify, alter, or rubberstamp the document. The Basic Law called for loose federalism among small, semiautonomous lands as well as checks and balances, with significant

limits on executive power. Important elections followed, supervised and managed by occupation forces whose numbers would dwindle until 1955.10

The Occupation of Japan

In October 2002, Secretary of State Colin Powell told the Associated Press that “the United

States is considering a model for post-war Iraq that resembles Japan after World War II,

when Japan was occupied by an American-led government.” Earlier, David Sanger and

Eric Schmitt of the New York Timesreported that an occupation plan for Iraq would be

Totalitarian Liberals, Top-Down Revolution, and a Work in Progress 15
modeled on the postwar occupation of Japan, with General Tommy R. Franks heading up

a U.S. military government in Baghdad. Franks, they wrote, would assume the role that

General Douglas MacArthur served in Japan after its surrender in 1945. While Powell has

subsequently backed off from comparisons of a postwar Iraq with the occupation of

Japan, Franks and Lt.-Gen. Jay Garner (Ret.) have been chosen to head an occupation

government in Iraq. The temporary government assembling in Baghdad will be the largest American occupation force since the United States assumed postwar governance of

Japan nearly sixty years ago.

The Potsdam Declaration, the “United States Initial Post-Surrender Policy Relating to

Japan,” and the classified JCS 1380/15 provided theme and direction to the occupation

government in Japan. Potsdam was tough but still less vindictive than JCS 1067. It described how stern justice, reparations, and demilitarization were necessary along with the

removal of obstacles to democratization. It was also ambiguous enough to leave the emperor’s role and fate undefined. The “Initial Post-Surrender Policy” went further. It gave

MacArthur authority over media as well as educational and social policy in order to politically reorient the country. The sensitive JCS 1380/15 described how MacArthur was to

avoid a policy of collective punishment and instead to use his authority to drive what

John W. Dower in Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II calls a “wedge” between the militarists on the one side and the public and the emperor on the other.11

The occupation government in Japan was to instill an appreciation of democratic practice from its earliest days. Within his first weeks in Japan, MacArthur ordered and then delivered on an impressive array of reforms, including the dismantling of large family-run

conglomerates, land redistribution, and the introduction of civil liberties protections.

Labor was given the right to organize and strike. Freedom of speech and assembly were

announced. Women were given the right to vote and political prisoners were released

from jails. The government-sanctioned religious cult of Shinto was banned. School curricula were revised and the media and the arts were censored to promote pacifist values

even while occupation personnel stressed the importance of a free press. Simultaneously,

the occupation government purged well-known militarists and wartime collaborators

from their posts, making an example of them in the press and in public trials. More than

210,000 Japanese were purged from public life, including 2,000 civil servants, most of

whom were in the Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs.12

There was simply no modern or legal precedent for MacArthur’s reforms. The changes

had been made by fiat, on MacArthur’s order, and were decreed within the first months of

occupation. The remains of the Japanese government, bystanders to this flurry of social

reengineering, were stunned by the extent to which the occupation government subverted

common Japanese understandings of class and propriety. Yet the emperor encouraged cooperation and goodwill with little direct comment on the reforms or the popular forces

that were being released. This lent enormous legitimacy to the occupation and reform

process with the general public. Economic restructuring emboldened workers and traditionally marginalized classes. Political liberalization, though confusing at first, empowered

women, the poor, and the edges of the political spectrum. Skillful manipulation of the

media, clever exploitation of latent class animosities, and the emperor’s acquiescence led

to the reforms being embraced with enthusiasm. This was the sharp end of MacArthur’s

16 Totalitarian Liberals, Top-Down Revolution, and a Work in Progress
wedge strategy, and within months of the implementation of these dramatic reforms, the

public began to turn against figures they perceived as being politically conservative or having betrayed them in a horrendous war.

The irony of these reforms was rich. State Department experts continued to maintain

that the Japanese were incapable of democracy, aligning themselves with the conservative

Japanese government, which asserted the same. As Dower notes, the “revolution” started

from the top with direction and encouragement from the least transparent and most hierarchical organs in the state—the monarchy and MacArthur’s headquarters. Even though

the occupation government sent out roving civic teams to educate the public about the

virtues of the U.S. political system, there were no checks and balances within occupation

headquarters. Moreover, Americans in Japan were at the top of a privileged caste system,

exhibiting the same conceit visible in Germany. Hotels, stores, trains, buses, recreational

facilities, and portions of towns were off-limits to local residents. Expression in the media

and the content of curricula in schools were carefully controlled by the occupation government. And when the public began, in the occupation’s second year, to become increasingly critical of the emperor and his inaccessibility, MacArthur was quick to condemn

such expression and control it.13

By late 1946, the enthusiasm of the Japanese for MacArthur’s reforms had accelerated

beyond the expectations and comfort level of the occupation government. Revolution

from below, necessary for real reform to be sustainable, was well under way. But after

MacArthur began to censor new criticisms of the emperor and ban demonstrations, the

Japanese began to understand just how limited the democracy they were coming to embrace was. The Communist Party, until then particularly enthusiastic about the reforms,

began to sour on the occupation. The number of strikes increased. MacArthur moved to

outlaw strikes in 1948 and more tightly control expression in the press. By 1950 and the

Korean War, MacArthur had begun a purge of Communist Party members and red

rhetoric from media, government, and economic institutions that rivaled the initial postwar purges of militarists. This gradual reversal puzzled, disappointed, and exasperated

Japanese who had begun to constructively question the fundamental values that had led

Japan to war and who were actively learning the importance of public participation and

skepticism. MacArthur’s growing conservatism not only resulted in backpedaling on initial freedoms but also entailed strong encouragement from the United States for Japanese

rearmament by 1950. Only the new constitution and the Japanese government’s own reluctance curbed MacArthur’s and Washington’s enthusiasm for Japanese armed participation in the Korean War.14

Vetting members of Japanese institutions was initially more challenging than in Germany. There was no equivalent to the Nazi Party to use as a litmus test of taint. In the beginning, the occupation government worked off lists of known militarists and outspoken

nationalists that were prepared from intelligence gathered before the war’s end—similar

to lists that have been prepared in the case of Iraq. These individuals were removed from

their posts during the first weeks of the occupation, at the same time that propaganda, intelligence, military, and nationalist organizations and associations were abolished. Critical

governing functions were assumed by Americans, both military and civilian, taking charge

of rank-and-file Japanese left in place. A zealous citizenry and civil service completed

Totalitarian Liberals, Top-Down Revolution, and a Work in Progress 17
much of the vetting as MacArthur created division between militarists and the public.

Most of the 5,700 individuals indicted for Class B and C war crimes were recommended

to trial commissions by the Japanese themselves—even though no Japanese jurist sat on

these courts. This raises the important question of why the opportunity to create Japaneseled trials, a powerful hedge against charges of “victor’s justice,” was not pursued even to

the minimum degree it was in Germany. This is an especially important question in regard to the Tokyo Trials for Class A war criminals, criticized even by participating international justices and later by Japanese neonationalists as being little more than prejudiced

revenge trials.

The role of the Japanese government throughout the occupation was nominal but important. By themselves, the Japanese government and the bureaucracy were virtually powerless. They were relevant only to the extent that MacArthur used or consulted them. The

role of the existing government in essentially legitimating the decisions of the occupation

government was never clearer than in the ratification of Japan’s new, postwar constitution. In March 1946, a draft constitution was handed to the Japanese prime minister by

MacArthur’s aides. It was to be considered the parliament’s own work even though no

Japanese had been part of its creation. In secret, MacArthur had formed a constitutional

convention composed of twenty-four U.S. military officers and civilians. Only one had

any significant familiarity with Japanese culture and none were experts in constitutional

law. The framers were idealistic individuals from diverse backgrounds that included public administration, journalism, investment banking, and service in the U.S. Congress.

MacArthur told the group to start from the three sets of basic principles he provided to

create a comprehensive blueprint for Japanese governance within a week. The result was a

remarkable document of political, social, and economic rights, some of which went further than the U.S. Constitution in ensuring a wide array of liberties. The draft constitution

contained an equal protection clause for women and another describing the future role of

a largely ceremonial emperor within a system dominated by a multiparty parliament. Significantly, Article 9 of the draft read,“The Japanese people forever renounce war as a sovereign right of the nation ... land, sea and air forces as well as other war potential will

never be maintained. The right of belligerency of the state will not be recognized.”

Members of the Japanese parliament, or Diet, were shaken by the document. They argued that the draft could not possibly work in Japanese culture. It would undermine and

erode all that was essential to ordered and sustainable society. As Dower notes, only

MacArthur’s threat to put the liberal document up for public referendum convinced the

Diet to “own” the document and to shepherd it through symbolic passage. The Diet’s reluctance to do this illustrated a wider conservatism that made MacArthur prefer to use the

bureaucracy to directly implement his decisions. For the most part, the Diet was occasionally important for the perception of self-governance and for periodic legitimation of occupation government decrees—but the bureaucracy was critical in turning decisions into

meaningful action. Many of the individuals remaining in the bureaucracy and in local

governments were themselves caught up in the spirit of occupation reforms. Some of the

initial impetus for labor and land reform, for example, came from within the postpurge

Japanese system. The reliance on an indigenous technocratic elite had its costs, however.

By 1950, with the reversal of reforms well under way, the bureaucracy had assumed a less

18 Totalitarian Liberals, Top-Down Revolution, and a Work in Progress
responsive and less transparent character. Dower calls this new class of civil servants “bureaucratic mandarins,” and their dominance and eventual manipulation of policy contributed to the erosion of earlier ideals and values espoused and initially supported by

occupation forces.

By the time MacArthur left Japan in 1951 and sovereignty was returned in 1952, a loss

of idealism and an aimlessness characterized Japanese society, a condition that would not

be overcome until the economic boom in later decades provided a new source of pride for

the Japanese public. The legacy of reform remained, however. Enough of the traditional,

hierarchical assumptions of Japanese society had been turned on their head to have a lasting impact: a majority now believed in the value of more equalitarian social organization

and political democracy. The Japanese “read meaning” into the foreign constitution to

make it a Japanese document—ignoring, for instance, provisions on women’s equality for

forty years—but in the end, halting, often inconsistent postwar reform and reconstruction

in Japan were a success. The role of the monarchy gracefully gave way to authentic parliamentary governance. Press freedoms evolved and endured. Large family conglomerates of

finance and industrial concerns transformed into the publicly traded keiretsu that became

the basis for the Japanese model envied and dissected for its secrets of success in the 1970s

and 1980s. To this day, the Japanese are generally suspicious of nationalism and intolerant

of militarism. With some modification, constitutional provisions outlawing war continue

to guide defense policy—although this policy may be tested in coming months if North

Korea triggers a regional arms race. It was an experiment in nation building, however, that

would never be repeated.

The Ongoing Engagement in Afghanistan

Afghanistan’s extended civil war began in 1978 and persisted for more than two decades.

During that period, war and natural disasters created the single largest refugee caseload in

the world for twenty straight years. An estimated 1.5 million people died, and an additional 500,000 were disabled or injured and more than 1 million Afghans were internally

displaced. Particularly intense fighting beginning with the collapse of President Muhammad Najibullah’s government in 1992 led to severe deterioration of what remained of the

political, social, and economic infrastructure of the country. In September 2001, fighting

between the two latest combatants in the long war was still under way, with strong advances by the Taliban in the north causing rival Northern Alliance forces to retreat.

On October 7, however, U.S. airstrikes began on Taliban targets in Afghanistan,

launched in response to al Qaeda attacks in Washington, D.C. and New York. By midDecember, the Taliban were in disarray and the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance had occupied Kabul. Al Qaeda and most of the Taliban’s top leadership had fled the country. In the

aftermath, postwar security and the formation of viable, legitimate authority in the country loomed as the two largest postintervention priorities in the region. Hastily convened

talks among Afghanistan’s competing factions during December in Bonn, Germany, produced a careful, precariously balanced agreement for a transitional government and a

postwar future. The bitter rivals in attendance agreed on provisions for emergency and

constitutional loya jirgas, an interim power-sharing arrangement, and a schedule for new

elections. Over the next 180 days, the United States would lead the coalition effort to

Totalitarian Liberals, Top-Down Revolution, and a Work in Progress 19
20 Totalitarian Liberals, Top-Down Revolution, and a Work in Progress

continue mopping-up operations in the south of the country while the United Nations

would authorize an International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) of five thousand troops

to secure Kabul. The emergency loya jirga, ending on June 19, 2002, created the current

Afghanistan Interim Administration (AIA). A similar jirga to draft and ratify a new

Afghan constitution is to take place by December 2003 and elections for a permanent

government are to be held by June 2004.15

A year and a half after intervention, the Taliban and al Qaeda are no longer able to

mass and stage large-scale attacks. Humanitarian crises are fading. The Afghan government is becoming more coherent over time, and there is now slow movement to develop

peace with justice in place of the sense that peace before justice was necessary. Afghans’

enthusiasm for participating in defining their future, as witnessed in the loya jirga, is clear.

Several delegates, 11 percent of whom were women, went so far as to tell warlords in attendance that they should not be present. They had blood on their hands, they argued,

and Afghanistan deserves better. Delegates still speak of their anger at the closed and secretive process of choosing Afghanistan’s president at the loya jirga. This outspokenness is

a powerful and remarkable portent of a more hopeful future.

There is additional cause for optimism. Afghanistan has not relapsed into wholesale

civil war, no small accomplishment in a country that has known little else for a generation. A pragmatic interim authority was established on schedule. Salaries of most government officials are now being paid, and cash-for-work and food-for-work programs have

together created three million jobs. More than two million refugees have returned, a number far exceeding international expectations. The worst humanitarian crises have been

contained with food and agricultural assistance, shelter programs, and the improvement

of water sources. The rehabilitation of clinics, bazaars, schools, and veterinary centers,

along with vaccination and teacher training programs, is under way. Civil liberties have

improved. Training of an incipient national army has begun, and in the early months of

2003 international assistance has become more readily available for large-scale repair of

roads, communications systems, university facilities, central banking, and government offices. Aid agencies have created an economy unto themselves, with the United States alone

spending nearly $350 million in Afghanistan since the end of the war. Violent conflict has

exhausted Afghans, and few express much sympathy for war as a useful means to achieve

political ends.

But progress has also been slower than originally envisioned. The postwar peace remains profoundly vulnerable to the attention-deficit disorder of major donors, growing

insecurity in the capital, military feudalism, and the rising impatience of Afghans. The

international community has pledged $4.5 billion over five years for reconstruction in

Afghanistan. But of the $1.8 billion promised for 2002 at the Tokyo conference in March,

only $1 billion has been committed, with even less implemented as assistance in the field.

The AIA has claimed that only $560 million in assistance was actually allocated in 2002, of

which only $90 million has been given directly to the government to support its operations. Moreover, 80 percent of the total disbursed has funded relief programs rather than

reconstruction initiatives. Afghan finance minister Ashraf Ghani has called this a dangerous game, one in which the reluctance and caution that international donors exercise toward the new government and reconstruction may ultimately undermine the fragile
peace. Of critical importance to stability, warn Ghani and Afghan president Hamid

Karzai, will be the ability of the government in Kabul to become more relevant in the

provinces by effectively delivering meaningful reconstruction assistance outside the

capital.

Although the AIA is quick to blame the international community for poor performance, the administration lacks the capacity to absorb and manage large amounts of direct assistance or to coordinate the activities of its own interim ministries. Until late

August 2002, to the profound frustration of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, no financial mechanism existed to channel direct assistance to AIA accounts—

the Afghan Central Bank was still busy requesting fax machines, desks, and telephone

lines. Moreover, only a handful of the Afghan government’s twenty-nine ministers are reliable, competent partners with national, rather than regional, vision. The stubborn persistence of humanitarian emergencies in the country has necessitated an international

preoccupation with relief programs, and the costs implicit in setting up large assistance

operations in unfamiliar territory and in a postwar environment that lacks basic infrastructure mean less net assistance for Afghans.

Interagency and interpersonal fractiousness in the international community has also

been a cause of delay. Literally hundreds of relief and reconstruction strategies exist, some

neither coherent nor complementary, among various donor organizations, UN agencies,

foreign governments, and international NGOs. Lines of authority and communication

are ambiguous among the government’s own Afghan Assistance Coordination Authority

(AACA), its ministries, six UN agencies, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), the ISAF, the Coalition Joint Civil Military Operations Task Force (CJCMOTF), foreign diplomatic and donor organizations, NGOs, and the new U.S. Provisional Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) to be deployed in the provinces. NGOs are particularly difficult to coordinate. International NGOs, familiar with working in modern

postwar environments characterized by weak, corrupt, or nonexistent governments are

quick to assert their independence from oversight by the AACA and other coordination

bodies. Depending on their source of funding, many organizations participate in coordination efforts to the degree that it suits their interests, and they often deploy according to

internal assessments of need, cluster in areas that are easily accessible, or crowd around

institutions relevant to their expertise. In the meantime, the conspicuous inequalities of

wealth inherent in the operational footprints of aid organizations make Afghans impatient as they wait for the bustle of activity around them to translate into concrete improvements in their daily lives. In addition, a brain drain of overqualified Afghan talent

into low-responsibility positions in international agencies continues. The government,

now able to pay most of its officials the equivalent of $50 to $75 a month, complains bitterly along with local nongovernmental organizations that they cannot attract or keep

good talent as Afghans can earn five to twenty-five times that amount as guards, cooks,

drivers, program assistants, and managers for international agencies.

Also worrisome is the status of refugees who have gravitated to cities where inflation

from the aid economy coupled with a scarcity of resources contributes to a rise in urbanrural tensions. Tribalism and more conservative Islamic notions of social and political behavior collide with the relative secularism and urban legal traditions in Afghanistan’s

Totalitarian Liberals, Top-Down Revolution, and a Work in Progress 21
cities. There is also a sharpening of exclusive, regional subidentities under way that makes

the development of allegiance to Kabul problematic. If this continues, the important advantages the capital may eventually offer in the rule of law, human rights protections, and

economic benefits to the provinces will go unrecognized. Of additional concern is the inability of the international community to effectively contain the spread of opium poppy

cultivation and the cycles of debt, coercion, and impoverishment it creates. Thus far,

largely owing to the dismal failure of last year’s poppy eradication campaign, little assistance has been earmarked by any major donor for a follow-on effort in 2003.

But by far the greatest danger to Afghanistan’s stability more than a year after U.S. intervention comes from the worsening security environment. The nine thousand U.S.

troops still in Afghanistan have come under increasing fire in the first four months of

2003 from hostile elements based inside Pakistan’s western border and in remote parts of

Afghanistan. In Kabul, where ISAF maintains a robust presence, assassinations of government officials and an attempt on President Karzai’s life, together with explosions in the

crowded streets of the city, signal the continuing insecurity of the capital. Outside Kabul,

where no international peacekeeping forces are present, powerful warlords and private

armies have consolidated their control over much of the rest of the country, increasing the

number of human rights violations and lawlessness in the process.

Under the Taliban, the country’s endemic military factionalism was weakened. The Taliban’s demise and the United States’ continuing reliance on warlord proxies to prosecute

the war now exaggerate the military feudalism that is reemerging in the postwar power

vacuum. Said one U.S. official quoted in the Washington Post,“Right now, if you’re the enemy of our enemy, you’re our friend.”16 The simultaneous execution of a hot war using

such surrogates alongside efforts to consolidate postwar peace complicates the U.S. mission in Afghanistan. The strengthening and protection of warlords such as Bacha Khan

Zadran, Daoud Khan, Abdul Rashid Dostum, Gul Agha Sherzai, and Ismail Khan to facilitate the fight against terrorism has emboldened many of the same individuals to use their

newfound status to more tightly control freedom of movement, to corrupt aid activities,

to curtail free expression, and to control market access in their areas.

These same commanders, many of whom hold civil posts as well, often stand accused

of facilitating smuggling, participating in the poppy trade, practicing extortion, and taking

part in destructive “green on green” fighting between rival militias and criminal gangs.

The percentage of assistance skimmed now, say experienced aid workers, is equal to that

stolen during the fighting between the Taliban and the Northern Alliance. U.S. forces disregard the activity and are quick to point out that they are not in Afghanistan to police but

to continue the war with al Qaeda. ISAF is of little help. It continues to be confined to

Kabul, primarily because of a lack of support from the United States and a lack of will

from other nations. The contributions of logistical, intelligence, air evacuation, and

backup support that would make ISAF expansion viable have not materialized. With few

options, Afghans must still turn to Afghan factional leaders and their irregulars for protection and favors. Some residents, particularly those in areas where corruption is rampant

and where skirmishing between warlords is common, are nostalgic for the predictability

of life under the Taliban.

22 Totalitarian Liberals, Top-Down Revolution, and a Work in Progress
The ideal solution is the reconstitution of the central army. But fashioning the seventythousand-strong institution from among the recruits currently available and at the pace at

which training now proceeds will take a decade. Of the first three thousand recruits

trained during 2002, nearly half deserted or returned to the employ of their regional commander. The remaining half, mostly Tajik, remain loyal to General Muhammad Qaseem

Fahim, former Northern Alliance strongman and now Afghan defense minister. A contingent of new Afghan troops did take part with U.S. forces in action against antigovernment

irregulars in November 2002, and fifty men of the Afghan Third Battalion now serve in

Orgun, Paktika province. Both deployments are sources of great pride to Afghans and by

all accounts count as successes. However, the creation of an effective, diverse, and truly national army will require a larger training program and a concerted effort to draw and retain recruits from throughout Afghanistan.17

The task of training police has proved similarly difficult and slow. While some local

police remain professional, many more are notorious for their participation in extortion

schemes and human rights abuses. New police-training programs in Kabul, run by the

German government with additional funds from the British, have had first to weed out

the worst offenders and then start from scratch with the rest. The degree of training required was evident in February 2002, when six hundred freshly trained police failed to

prevent militia skirmishes in their vicinity that left two people dead and many more injured. In November 2002, police beat and then fired on unarmed students protesting living conditions at Kabul University. Four students were killed and forty were wounded.

Police threatened eyewitnesses, including injured students in hospitals, warning them not

to speak with reporters or the government’s nascent Afghan Human Rights Commission.

In the absence of an Afghan army, ISAF expansion, or reliable policing in coming years,

few options exist to manage regional militias and other localized threats to peace and reconstruction. The United States has suggested that the deployment of eight to ten U.S.-led

PRTs in key provinces over the first half of 2003 may help. Each will be commanded by a

high-ranking, field-experienced U.S. military officer and consist of sixty personnel drawn

from Special Forces, Civil Affairs, the United States Agency for International Development, and the State Department, as well as from other coalition representatives. But their

role is to facilitate and protect civilian and military assistance providers, says the Pentagon’s Office of Stability Operations, not to interfere in factional fighting or to provide

police protection to local residents. The PRTs, as part of the coalition effort fighting al

Qaeda, will not be reflagged as part of ISAF or be redefined as peacekeepers. As an extension of the coalition’s presence, they will retain belligerent status in Afghanistan. Three

pilot teams have been deployed thus far, one each in Bamyan, Kunduz, and Gardez.18

While acknowledging that the reorientation of the U.S. effort toward reconstruction is

a step in the right direction, NGOs are nervous about the PRTs. They warn that the PRTs

will have to be careful to distance themselves from these outposts since Afghans would

lump any civilian humanitarians working closely with PRTs in with coalition belligerents.

They also worry that PRT policy will skew assistance delivery to promote force protection,

reconnaissance, critical relations with factional leaders, and “hearts-and-minds” campaigns rather than address the pressing priorities of Afghans. The restrictive security role

the PRTs intend to play will confuse and disappoint Afghans. Local residents, NGOs say,

Totalitarian Liberals, Top-Down Revolution, and a Work in Progress 23
24

will expect more of a policing role from these outposts and will go to PRT compounds for

recourse to a host of their very real security problems.

But the sharpest criticism is that the PRTs will choose the wrong interlocutors to work

with or will assess and rebuild community infrastructure without the participation of local residents—something U.S. peacekeepers in Bosnia and Kosovo have often done. The

results are often high-maintenance facilities made of costly materials that cannot be maintained, given local capacities, over the long term. And as infrastructure decays from lack of

maintenance, so the status of local Afghan authorities who have unilaterally identified the

community’s needs is enhanced. These same figures, NGOs emphasize, are often part of

the architecture of insecurity and oppression in the region and should be marginalized,

not strengthened. In the end, local Afghans learn a powerful negative lesson in whose

voice counts in local decision making—invariably not that of women, for example, and

not that of the poor and those disconnected from the patronage networks of warlords.

Totalitarian Liberals, Top-Down Revolution, and a Work in Progress
Four

The Road Here

Observations and Lessons from Germany,

Japan, and Afghanistan

I

n Japan and Germany, sufficent U.S. forces were on the ground to micromanage the

day-to-day affairs of millions of people, and U.S. troops in both occupations harbored what John Kenneth Galbraith called “an arrogant certainty of high purpose.”19

Military governance in Japan was indirect, using many of the existing government institutions and much of the bureaucracy, whereas U.S. military governance in Germany was

direct in the absence of German authority. Both occupation governments were thought

necessary for a few months at most, but they lasted seven years. Purges took place in each

location, although the purges affected far greater numbers of Germans. Dramatic showcase trials took place in both Japan and Germany, with a large number of lower-level

courts trying individuals accused of lesser war crimes. Fear of communism eventually

forced a reevaluation of policy in both occupations—although the outcomes of the reevaluations were different. The later, earnest focus on reconstruction in both theaters left

the issues of war crimes and collective guilt unresolved, issues that remain uncomfortable

in Japan and Germany to this day. The majority opinion of experts was that both populations were incapable of understanding or practicing democracy. Moreover, cultural

decontamination was thought to be necessary in the early months of occupation to exorcise both populations of the demons and militarism that had brought them to war.

But the similarities end there. Whereas the United States was firmly in control of the

whole of postwar Japan, it controlled only one of four sectors in Germany. Japan surrendered before invasion became necessary, leaving much of the infrastructure of the country

intact, unlike in Germany. The figure of the Japanese emperor was essential to legitimizing

postwar policies and maintaining critical continuity during the occupation. There was no

equivalent of the emperor in Germany. In Japan there was no policy calling for punishment of a population perceived to be collectively responsible for the war. Moreover, occupying forces in Japan were influenced by an ethnocentric “missionary zeal” to bring truth

to a people once described as “monkeys” and “baboons” in wartime propaganda.20 General Douglas MacArthur, the Supreme Commander of Allied Powers (SCAP) in Japan,

had more of a free hand in developing policy than Clay ever enjoyed, given the “Europe

first” orientation that prevailed in Washington until the outbreak of the Korean War.

Dower describes how the Japanese embraced MacArthur as their own and how the messianic, paternalistic, and charismatic viceroy was virtually untouchable as he carried out

his mandate from his Tokyo compound.21 Clay, by character and by place, never achieved

such an elevated status and often suffered as the whipping boy for Washington’s failed

manipulation of early postwar policy in Germany. 25
Afghanistan, at the outside edge of the eighteen-month window of vulnerability when

postwar peace most often fails, remains precarious. The country is not quite at peace and

not quite at war and is in danger of losing its balance without continued and intelligent

international support. The United States shows continued reluctance to commit adequate

resources to close the enduring security gap that contributes to social, political, and economic instability. The ordinary continues to be extraordinary in Afghanistan. Only eleven

of twenty-three regional government offices are now connected by phone. No formal

banking system exists. A nationwide radio broadcast network has only recently been completed and the road system is so degraded that it takes hours to travel to destinations that

required a fraction of the time years ago. Kabul, where utility services are the most reliable, suffers regular disruptions in electrical service, and water sources in the city continue

to be vulnerable to the persistent drought. As Afghan finance minister Ashraf Ghani puts

it, Afghanistan has gone backward in time during an age of acceleration. Often in postwar

environments it is not what is accomplished in what amount of time that is important

but an impression that things are getting better. Nation building is not merely a physical

process but also a psychological one. Maintaining modest momentum in postwar reconstruction and ensuring that Afghans take part and know what is occurring and what to

expect in the future will be fundamental to success in the coming years. The dangers of instability and an upsurge in violence are real, and making progress on several fronts over

the remainder of 2003 will be critical to successful postwar reconstruction.

There are limits to the significance of the lessons learned in Germany, Japan, and

Afghanistan to the U.S. military occupation of Iraq. The three cases were products of their

time and specific sets of circumstances and personalities. Nonetheless, these U.S. encounters with complete military occupation (in Japan and Germany) and limited, proxy engagement (in Afghanistan) do have lessons relevant to the current age of nation building

and preemptive war, lessons that may prove critical to winning postwar peace.

◗ Demonstrate a peace dividend. Showing U.S. commitment to rebuild and reform the

country with little delay had benefits in Japan. The lack of such commitment contributed to bitterness and war nostalgia in Germany. The longevity of German postwar resistance groups like the Werewolves is partly attributable to the prolonged

desperation of the German public under JCS 1067. In Japan, the success of General

MacArthur’s wedge politics depended on making good on a number of astonishing

promises to liberalize the defeated nation early. In Afghanistan, insecurity will prevail and impatience will rise if the international presence does not soon translate

into observable improvements in the quality of life for a significant number of

Afghans.

◗ Reject notions of collective guilt. The rejection of collective guilt in occupied Japan

was important in rapidly building momentum for reform from below. The focus

on collective punishment and reparations that preoccupied Clay’s government in

Germany complicated reforms even after the Marshall Plan began. MacArthur was

fond of saying that to allow the Japanese to reassure themselves of their new identity

and of a better future, it was necessary to make the militarist cross section of Japanese society the vessel of all that was bad and backward in the nation. Rejection of

26 The Road Here: Observations and Lessons
collective guilt in Japan also made the emperor’s cooperation possible.22 Developing

a strong sense of Afghan identity apart from military and regional factionalism is

likewise important to the success of postwar transition in Afghanistan.

◗ Commit to transition rather than to half measures. The United States stepped into the

moral and physical wreckage of Germany and Japan to assume complete control.

Planning for each occupation had begun more than two years before the war’s end,

and the United States was prepared for a wide variety of eventualities. Managing the

restoration of the rule of law, institutions of governance, utility services, transportation networks, and market access along with distributing food rations and providing

shelter and health care to stave off humanitarian and political crises were the top

priorities. In Afghanistan, a lack of sufficient security and of robust international

management of the postwar environment undermine the peace process. Many

Afghans are disillusioned by the disconnect between the rhetoric committing the

international community to peacebuilding and the unwillingness to directly address

the serious threats factional leaders and poor infrastructure pose to stability and

human rights.

◗ Take the time to win a just peace. Despite years of planning before the end of World

War II, the United States still underestimated the amount of time that would be

required for the complex tasks of rebuilding infrastructure, vetting officials, restructuring institutions, and transforming citizens’ relationship to their government in

Germany and Japan. To the credit of the United States, it stayed on to finish the job

it started, well beyond the six to eighteen months originally envisioned. A similar

tendency to underestimate the time required to win peace has been evident more

recently in Bosnia, where the seven-year U.S. peacekeeping presence in Bosnia was

initially conceived of as a temporary intervention lasting no longer than six months.

Other engagements, past and present, ranging from peacekeeping to full occupation,

in Cuba, Guam, Puerto Rico, the Philippines, Panama, Haiti, and Kosovo, likewise

testify to the failure to recognize that postwar reconstruction takes a good deal of

time. This mistake is a constant in the calculus of postwar planning throughout

U.S. history.

◗ Reform, assist, and collaborate with local institutions. In Germany and Japan, U.S.

occupation governments realized that while they could physically secure the environment more or less on their own, they needed indigenous institutions to begin

the process of deeper social and political reform essential to the eventual downsizing

of the occupation. In each case, this transfer of responsibility was possible only after

indigenous institutions, including police, courts, legal codes, ministries, and local

governments, were reorganized for a peace economy and individuals were vetted for

their complicity in the war effort. The Afghan government in Kabul exercises de jure

but not de facto power. With a greater capacity to deliver goods and services, Kabul

may be responsive enough to make progress on human rights, reconstruction, coordination, media development, and rule of law. But to create a viable republic, Kabul

must offer Afghan citizens a clear agenda, hope, and tangible benefits. Building the

capacity and depth of important ministries while facilitating their reliable delivery

The Road Here: Observations and Lessons 27
of assistance, and passing funds through their good offices if necessary, will be critical to a return to normalcy in Afghanistan.

◗ Encourage an ethic of public participation to sustain democratic development. An

important element of MacArthur’s wedge strategy was to work locally among outlying communities, completely bypassing the conservative top and middle layers of

Japanese government. Thus, for instance, local elections were held in which women

voted for the first time and roving teams of civics instructors were dispatched to

communities to discuss the nature of democracy (albeit all too often to describe the

superiority of U.S.-style governance). Some of these teams were followed by civil

affairs officers who then organized communities to begin reconstruction projects in

those locations. It was democracy in miniature and it helped communities address

their real needs while developing an appreciation for political participation that

proved useful after the return of sovereignty. As democratic governance emerged in

Japan, programs such as these encouraged a critical mass of citizens to take part in

elections and to engage in political discourse while making demands and articulating interests to a new government in ways that sustained reformed institutions. The

same began to occur in Germany, but only after the Marshall Plan was implemented. Even then, the Marshall Plan was top-heavy and funded reconstruction of

government and economic institutions at the expense of encouraging local participation in the rehabilitation of community infrastructure. The loya jirga process in

Afghanistan, as rushed and imperfect as it was, remains admirable for the way it

emboldened Afghans to speak out against factional violence and initiated national

dialogue on the country’s future. The lack of follow-on opportunities for Afghans to

capitalize on this political moment, the continuance of factional violence, the closed

and secretive constitutional loya jirga process, and the slow progress of forming

inclusive political parties to compete in coming elections may erode this impressive

initial momentum.

◗ Avoid displaying arrogance of purpose and creating caste systems, which foster cynicism

and disillusionment. A disconnect between reform initiatives and the condescension

of occupation institutions made U.S. intentions suspect and undermined the credibility of military governments in Germany and Japan. Fortunately for the U.S.

authorities, the fear of Soviet influence and of the more thorough and punishing

purges conducted in the Soviet sector muted German criticism of U.S. arrogance.

The emperor’s support and MacArthur’s flamboyance and determination to make

rapid changes in Japan tempered the impact of such dissonance there. But without

such intervening variables, it is likely that the two-class system would have critically

undermined the legitimacy of each occupation authority. These problems are less

pronounced in Afghanistan, although heavily armed U.S. intelligence operatives and

combat troops have engendered ill will with occasional callous disregard for local

customs and their comport.

◗ Achieve international legitimacy and deal with factionalism. The occupations of Japan

and Germany and the war in Afghanistan had a high degree of international legitimacy and could afford some disharmony between appearance and action. War

28 The Road Here: Observations and Lessons
between the Allies, on the one side, and Germany and Japan, on the other, was a

fight between equals, and the surrenders were unconditional, lending a degree of

internal legitimacy that was important to establishing a workable occupation government. The war in Afghanistan took place in response to the attacks of September

11, 2001. A large “coalition of the willing” was easily formed to force the Taliban

from power and evict al Qaeda from their traditional Afghan bases. Neither Japan

nor Germany was marked by ethnic or religious fractures, and neither was vulnerable to postwar destabilization from ethnic or religious minorities. Postwar borders

were relatively sound, and there was no equivalent to tribalism in either instance

that would threaten to break the postwar nation apart once the power of the previous regime was broken. In this regard, Japan and Germany were free from much of

the corrosive ethnic and regional factionalism that impairs the peace process in

Afghanistan and that may prove difficult to deal with in Iraq.

◗ Understand that actions may have unintended consequences. MacArthur’s heavy

reliance on the Japanese bureaucracy to directly implement his initiatives resulted in

a powerful and manipulative institution that was not politically accountable to voters. Even after political reforms and vetting, civil servants were often the target of

corruption charges, and once the occupation ended, the bureaucracy was a significant impediment to further political development. Another example of actions with

unintended political impact is how representatives eager to find local interlocutors

who could speak English or provide valuable technical information initially enhanced the status of certain Japanese and German individuals, later found to be

criminals. Similarly, the eventual rehabilitation of discredited individuals in both

occupations—in Germany under JCS 1779 and in Japan in response to the Korean

War—had a negative impact on citizens’ ability to contend with their nation’s violent past. In Afghanistan, the most egregious example of unintended or powerful

negative consequences flowing from a course of action can be found in the courting

of warlord proxies to conduct the ongoing hot war against remnants of the Taliban

and al Qaeda.

◗ Make use of social capital to temper the timing and character of transitions. In

Germany and Japan, initiatives by occupation governments were necessary to catalyze popular support for postwar rehabilitation. Neither Japan nor Germany had a

Nelson Mandela or Aung San Suu Kyi who could mobilize citizens to take matters

of democratic reform and transition into their own hands. The spark for transformation, especially in Japan, was external and implemented in such a way as to

encourage change from below. The conservatism of the Japanese government under

occupation and of U.S. experts on Japan and Germany who said each population

was incapable of democracy was misplaced. In Afghanistan, public patience is waning with the Kabul government, but goodwill toward Karzai and many of his ministers remains intact. However, Afghanistan has precious little in the way of deep

social capital to contribute to reconstruction and transformative political reform.

◗ Minimize the effect of external political events, which can undercut the best-laid plans.

Ironically, Germany’s division resulted not from the ambitions of internal separatists

The Road Here: Observations and Lessons 29
30

but from dissension among the Allies and the Cold War. The Korean War forced a

significant revision of occupation policy in Japan. Both Germany and Japan demonstrate how internal occupation initiatives were vulnerable to course-correction

pressures that were not always due to any challenges or opportunities within the

postwar environment. Afghanistan illustrates the importance of assurances that the

United States is willing to go the distance. If there is consensus on anything in Kabul

it is that the U.S. presence is vital to the maintenance of stability in the country.

Afghans and aid workers alike worry that the situation in Iraq could distract U.S.

resources and attention away from Afghanistan.

The Road Here: Observations and Lessons
Five

The Road Ahead in Iraq: Nation Building and

Postwar Peace 

Writing in response to the revised “National Security Strategy of the United

States of America,” made public in September 2002, John Ikenberry

describes the country’s new foreign policy as a 

vision in which the United States arrogates to itself the global role of setting standards,

determining threats, using forces and meting out justice. It is a vision in which sovereignty becomes more absolute for America even as it becomes more conditional for

countries that challenge Washington’s standards of internal and external behavior.23

“It is a vision,” Ikenberry adds,“made necessary—at least in the eyes of its advocates—

by the new apocalyptic character of contemporary terrorist threats and by America’s unprecedented global dominance.” Michael McFaul of the Carnegie Endowment and the

Hoover Institution finds the National Security Strategy remarkable for the way it “makes

promotion of liberty around the world an explicit U.S. national security interest.” Charles

Krauthammer finds reason for optimism in this “unilateral moment,” contending that

“we are not just any hegemon. We run a uniquely benign imperium.” The neoconservative nonprofit organization Project for the New American Century, whose supporters

include Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, and Paul Wolfowitz, maintains that the extraordinary and unparalleled power of the United States is best used “preserving and extending

an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles.” President George W. Bush, speaking before the graduating class of 2002 at West Point, reminded those in attendance that “the 20th century ended with a single surviving model of

human progress.”And lest it be forgotten, he argued,“the peoples of the Islamic nations

want and deserve the same freedoms and opportunities as people in every nation.”24

How the United States strikes the balance between the high value it puts on stability

and its rhetoric of liberation in postwar Iraq will be closely watched. Each move the

United States makes will reveal its post-9/11 international persona and reflect how the international community will read Washington’s future intentions. The war and the peace,

executed poorly, says Ikenberry, could “trigger antagonism and resistance that will leave

America in a more hostile and divided world.”25

The United States has the military dominance to succeed at war, but does it have what

it takes to engage in nation building for the decade or more it may take to set Iraq on an

orderly, stable path to democracy? 

Simon Chesterman maintains that the United States does not. In Panama, Haiti,

Bosnia, Kosovo, and Afghanistan, the United States has backed into such responsibilities,

often with deep denial and reluctance, resulting in a lack of commitment when the going

gets tough. He writes: 31
The importance of domestic politics in the exercise of American power means that it has

an exceptionally short attention span—far shorter than is needed to complete the long

and complicated task of rebuilding a country that has seen over two decades of war,

sanctions, and oppression under brutal leaders.26

“This describes both Afghanistan and Iraq,” adds Chesterman. Minxin Pei and Sara

Kasper of the Carnegie Endowment note that the United States replaced eighteen regimes

by force in the last century, but democratic rule prevailed in only Germany, Japan, Italy,

Panama, and Grenada—a success rate of 30 percent. Iraq, Pei and Kasper say, is the last

place the United States should continue the practices that account for such a poor performance. Tom Carothers agrees. Carothers, a democratization expert at Carnegie, stresses

that the complexity, profile, and sensitivity of an Iraq intervention will require the United

States “to commit itself to a massive, expensive, demanding, and long-lasting reconstruction effort.”27

The responsibilities and risks ahead in the postwar period in Iraq are daunting. Examples of what the United States may face are found in the post–World War II occupations

of Germany and Japan described earlier. Afghanistan is an example of Washington’s new

projection of power, exposing the modern challenges of postconflict reconstruction and

the complex relationship the United States continues to have with nation building. The

lessons from these interventions for would-be nation builders in Iraq are clear.

1. In the immediate postwar period, security and rule of law are essential to the success of

humanitarian and reconstruction initiatives as well as political reform. It is not sufficient to separate and contain warring factions—security that counts also requires a

constabulary capacity, civilian policing, and the ability to arrest, detain, and try

offenders in a fair manner. Quick action in Germany and Japan proved critical to

establishing effective public order in those occupations. Retrospective assessments

of intervention in Bosnia and Kosovo note the damage a lack of early and effective

means of transitional justice and postconflict security had in implementing reforms

there. A continuing lack of postconflict security in Afghanistan threatens to undermine eighteen months of hard-won achievements in that country.

2. Recognize the political implications of each decision, minimize arrogance, and avoid the

establishment of a postwar caste system. The arrogance of privilege and absolute control that Utley chronicled in Germany and the liberties Americans took with their

status in Japan demonstrate that it may be difficult for U.S. forces to occupy Iraq

without hubris—but it is essential that the United States make the effort. The attitudes of superiority evident in Germany and Japan will prove disastrous in Iraq,

where every move will carry political significance and where international legitimacy for occupation is in short supply. A caste system, as subtle and informal as it

may be, will be too iconographic of a demonized United States as well as antithetical

to democratization rhetoric and nation-building initiatives. In general, the United

States and its representatives must be cautious about who is chosen as an interlocutor, who receives rent for facilities, how occupation staff encourage public participation and political representation in an ethnically charged environment, and whether

appropriate proxies have been picked to carry out governance and security func32 The Road Ahead: Nation Building and Postwar Peace
tions. Occupation forces, civilian and military, down to the eighteen-year-old sentry

at the sharp end of Washington’s diplomacy, must be on their best behavior.

3. Employ “wedge” tactics, similar to those used by MacArthur in Japan to isolate the

criminals from the rest of the population. As Fouad Ajami has observed, there is an

acute sense of betrayed promise in Iraq. Saddam Hussein and the Ba’athists are

widely regarded as criminals. Regarding all Iraqis as collectively guilty of the

regime’s crimes not only would be inappropriate but also would confirm suspicions

of U.S. ethnocentrism and imperial ambition. The United States should instead

expand civil liberties, promote public participation in political decision making and

community affairs, and purge Ba’athists from high-ranking civil and military positions. Such an approach will help to make popular forces less likely to undermine

assistance initiatives and more likely to embrace reconstruction and to recognize

that reform will be a long-term process.

4. Create near-term participatory “peace dividend” reconstruction initiatives; these will

prove beneficial in managing rising expectations, avoiding dependency, and drawing

public support away from possible spoilers. In Germany, prolonged resistance to, disillusionment with, and a lack of progress on deeper reforms was due in great part to

the early unavailability of reconstruction assistance. In Japan, MacArthur’s rapid

delivery on a number of dramatic promises was important to the success of his

political strategy. In Afghanistan, the delay in implementing significant political

reform and reconstruction assistance is eroding Afghan patience and support for the

international presence. In Iraq, large, highly visible projects to repair transportation,

water, health, and telecommunications systems will certainly be necessary; however,

the United States must also not neglect the contributions that can be made by Iraq’s

social capital (its indigenous capacities) not only to large-scale projects but also to

smaller, community-based relief and reconstruction endeavors. Local projects do

not have to be expensive—most would average $25,000 to $50,000—but these funds

could be channeled directly into communities once local citizens have been organized to prioritize their reconstruction requests. The opportunity to invigorate a

democratic ethic in this fashion merits strong consideration. A broad campaign of

such projects using a participatory methodology would be an important precursor

to local elections and civil society development. In Kosovo such projects were useful

in developing a new political class and a renewed sense of citizen efficacy. A planned

“National Solidarity Program” in Afghanistan promises the same.

5. During the very first weeks of postconflict operations establish clear policies for civilmilitary interaction on relief and development initiatives. The distribution of humanitarian aid and the implementation of quick-impact reconstruction projects will

occur simultaneously during the first weeks of postconflict operations. Such tasks

call for significant civil-military interaction, which in turn requires clear policies to

ensure that U.S. military contingents and nongovernmental organizations understand other’s role and can collaborate effectively. Too often, policies are unclear or

fashioned on the spot, creating confusion and mutual hostility between the military

and the NGOs. If the military and NGOs, as well as the Iraqi people, are not to lose

The Road Ahead: Nation Building and Postwar Peace 33
valuable time and important opportunities, guidelines for civil-military interaction

must be clearly established early on—not on the run, as is the case with the PRTs in

Afghanistan.

Will the U.S. military engage in aid distribution and reconstruction projects only

as a last resort? Or will it take the lead in humanitarian and reconstruction assistance? Ideally, the military should use its expertise to establish security, open aid corridors, facilitate logistics, and supply civilian implementers with information on

dangers ranging from mines to spoilers. The military is likely to facilitate distribution of humanitarian aid and reconstruction with its engineering and civil affairs

expertise only to the extent that international and local civilian agencies are unable

to do the job. This emphasis on civilian organizations will work only if they are sufficiently funded and fully informed about the operational environment by the military as postwar operations are under way.

6. Form advisory bodies composed of Iraqis not associated with the past regime at the earliest possible moment. These bodies should be succeeded by a variety of supervised

participatory selection processes at local and regional levels to choose delegates to a

new Iraqi transitional council—a council that will be advisory in its first months

but will slowly assume greater responsibility. Unlike in Afghanistan, military or factional leaders should be precluded from participating or holding any civil office. As

in Japan and Germany, these local bodies should be composed of vetted individuals.

One of the first responsibilities of this advisory entity in Iraq, together with occupation coordinators, will be to develop a plan for the form of the later, sovereign

government. The advisory council and its subcommittees should also work with

occupation coordinators to prepare for eventual elections, schedule legal and constitutional reform, plan for community-based democratization initiatives, and identify

Iraqi government capacities that need attention and assistance in the first eight

months of occupation.

7. Do not underestimate the needs, challenges, and time required for postconflict reconstruction and nation building. The United States should brace for a long-term commitment—perhaps even longer than the initial phases of the Japanese and German

occupations. The anticipated six-month commitment currently being described by

Pentagon planners will likely be too short a period to consolidate the most volatile

threats to the peace process and to return significant governing authority to Iraq,

where there is no rule of law, no political party structure to build on, no separation

of powers, and no democratic tradition. Moreover, near-term fulfillment of the significant responsibilities of transitional occupation will be possible only if significant

numbers of Iraqis are retained in their civil service posts and if the United States

actively promotes democratic political development through advisory councils and

by working with government structures once they are purged of Saddam Hussein’s

appointees. This process should not be rushed. The United States must be opportunistic and swift in its response to political and humanitarian crises and to any

eruption of violence, malfeasance, or high crime—while reassuring to Iraqis that it

34 The Road Ahead: Nation Building and Postwar Peace
35

will stay the course. If the occupation government can conduct itself in this fashion,

it may well enjoy the patience and indulgence of Iraq’s people.

8. Ensure the prompt and thorough political decontamination and de-Ba’athification of

Iraq. In Germany, nearly all members of the Nazi Party were dismissed from their

civil and military posts within six months of the start of the U.S. occupation. In

Japan, militarists identified by the Allies before the war’s end were purged in the first

ten weeks. Occupation forces and local Japanese inspired by MacArthur’s wedge tactics identified and removed remaining militarists within eight months. In Haiti,

large numbers of the police were removed from their posts in the first months after

U.S. action there.

In Iraq, the treatment of the army will be very important. The army is perhaps

the single most potent and legitimate symbol of statehood in the country and

should not be humiliated. After the Iraqi army is confined to barracks to initially vet

and purge objectionable individuals, Iraqi brigades should be given incremental

responsibility to assist with constabulary duties, contain spoilers, and facilitate aid

delivery. Iraq’s armed forces—not regional factional leaders as in Afghanistan—

should serve as U.S. proxies in Iraq where needed.

◆◆◆

Success in postwar Iraq will be at least as difficult to accomplish than winning the peace in

Germany and Japan proved to be—and it will be a far more intricate task than the limited

U.S. engagement in Afghanistan. In Iraq, the United States will be held to unfamiliar standards in complicated circumstances. Is the United States ready?

The United States has the talent, resources, experience, and know-how to succeed in rebuilding Iraq. But the United States must summon the will to overcome a congenital aversion to nation building and a new penchant for unilateralism if the odds are to favor

stable, pluralisitc peace in Iraq. If violence and disorder persist within postwar Iraq on 

the U.S. watch, the consequences for the larger post-9/11 security and democratization

agenda may be ruinous—especially if the United States puts in place an unpopular, unrepresentative government, rapidly exits what may become a morass, or finds itself without allies amid a sullen, anti-American population bent on evicting an occupying army.

The United States has fundamentally reshaped its doctrine of military engagement without similarly reforming its commitment and capacity to stabilize and transform postconflict environments. It is this dissonance between an overdeveloped ability to wage and win

war and an anemic facility for winning peace that may be the undoing not only of populations distressed by preemptive war but also of U.S. ambitions to reshape the norms of

international order and the U.S. role in the world.

Losing the peace in Iraq could endanger the security of the United States, its international image, and its reputation for years to come. The practical manner in which the

United States might leverage its unprecedented power in the future will likewise be profoundly influenced by the outcome of the peace. The United States must carefully consider what it takes to get the job done, brace to contend with the unexpected, and go

thedistance in postconflict Iraq, mindful of its successes and failures in such endeavors

in the past.

The Road Ahead: Nation Building and Postwar Peace
Notes

1. Anthony Cordesman, Lessons of Afghanistan, October 2002, www.csis.org/pubs/

2002_afghanistan.htm.

2. Directive to Commander in Chief of the United States Forces of Occupation Regarding the

Military Government of Germany: April 1945 (Joints Chiefs of Staff Directive 1067). The directive

grew out of what came to be known as the Morgenthau Plan, named after Secretary of the

Treasury Henry Morgenthau, who advocated strict rules to punish and pacify the Germans under

the premise of collective guilt and to ensure that the nation would never again remilitarize to

threaten Europe or the United States.

3. See Michael Beschloss, The Conquerors: Roosevelt, Truman, and the Destruction of Hitler’s

Germany, 1941–1945 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2002), 169, 273. Clay writes that he

ordered his administration to carry out the “four D’s”: demilitarization, decartelization, democratization, and denazification under JCS 1067. See also Stephen Ambrose, Eisenhower: Soldier,

General of the Army, President Elect, 1890–1952 (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1983), 423–425.

4. George Patton, New York Times, September 23, 1945, as quoted in Beschloss, The

Conquerors, 273.

5. Freda Utley, The High Costs of Vengeance (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1949), 232.

6. “It is moreover inevitable that many Americans should be demoralized by their privileged

status in Germany. You can’t put most young men in a position to disregard law, conscience, and

training without spoiling them.” Ibid., 242.

7. Only in 1948, a year after the punitive JCS 1067 was replaced with the Marshall Plan (JCS

1779), did U.S. military personnel such as Lieutenant A. D. Porter note that the tenor of indoctrination instruction for incoming soldiers had changed. Instructors admonished newcomers:

“We’ve been kicking the Germans around for three years. It is now time to treat them like men.

You shouldn’t say ‘Fritz’ or ‘you damned Kraut,’ but address them as ‘Mister’ and remember they

are persons like yourself whose human dignity should be respected.” See ibid., 248. This behavior

is reminiscent of events in Kosovo under the UN protectorate there. One UN international staff

member serving as a municipal administrator compared himself to Jesus when asked by local residents about his role and authority.

8. For mention of a Ministry for Political Liberation, see Roy Licklider, “The American Way of

State Building: Germany, Japan, Somalia, and Panama,” Small Wars and Insurgencies 10, no. 3

(winter 1999): 87. Regarding denazification, vetting of eligible government officials, police, and

judges hinged almost exclusively on whether they were members of the Nazi Party. Evidence of a

criminal record also played a role. Experience and skill were not a priority. This reversed after the

implementation of JCS 1779. Several important Nazi Party members were rehabilitated for a variety of high-level posts.

9. Refugee crises involving Germans expelled from Pomerania and Silesia were also a serious

challenge to Clay’s ability to provide sufficient assistance to Germans in his sector. See Beschloss,

The Conquerors, 273–275.

36
10. Interestingly, Beschloss notes that surveys completed in Germany in 1955 indicate an

absence of guilt among Germans. Most Germans surveyed thought that the prewar period was

the best time in recent history and that Hitler and the Nazis simply executed their good ideas

poorly. See ibid., 279. 

11. John W. Dower, Embracing Defeat: Japan in the Wake of World War II (New York: W. W.

Norton and Company; New Press 1999), 277.

12. Licklider, “The American Way of State Building,” 86.

13. MacArthur was careful to protect the emperor and his reputation—especially from the

close scrutiny of the Tokyo Trials prosecutors. 

14. For a description of the occupation government’s backpedaling, or “reverse course,” see

Dower, Embracing Defeat, 525. Fear of communism and the advent of the Korean War marked

dramatic reversals in civil liberties, and popular disillusionment accompanied related moves to

reconstitute the dismantled finance and business conglomerates to help in the war effort in Korea.

As in Germany, a substantial number of dishonored individuals purged as militarists and wartime

financiers were rehabilitated to assist in reconstructing the economy. 

15. Notably absent at Bonn were representatives of Afghan civil society. Those who participated in the tightly controlled secret talks were from the factions that had battled one another

throughout the Afghan war.

16. An unnamed U.S. official quoted in Peter Baker “Bacha Khan’s Private War,” Washington

Post, May 11, 2002, A1.

17. See Carlotta Gall, “An Afghan Army Evolves from Fantasy to Slightly Ragged Reality,” New

York Times, January 25, 2003. Gall gives a vivid description of the Orgun deployment and of the

slow progress in training an Afghan army.

18. These teams were originally referred to as Joint Reconstruction Teams, or JRTs. The

Afghan government requested the name change. During a pilot phase, scheduled to last through

June 2003, the name will remain “Provisional Reconstruction Teams.” After that time, the teams

will be referred to as “Provincial Reconstruction Teams.”

19. Galbraith was referring to persons like himself who were economic planners managing the

U.S. war economy. See John Kenneth Galbraith, Journey through Economic Time: A Firsthand

View (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1994); and Dower, Embracing Defeat, 73.

20. See Dower, Embracing Defeat, 213.

21.Ibid., 73–74. MacArthur would eventually be disowned by the Japanese in a dramatic and

rapid reversal of affections after the general compared the Japanese people to a “boy of twelve” in

a speech he gave before the U.S. Senate on May 5, 1951. For an account of the Japanese reaction

to the speech, see ibid., 551.

22. Compare Serbia, where a sense of persecution, exacerbated by manipulative politicians,

continues to make recognition of wartime excesses and responsibility problematic. Perhaps an

important lost opportunity was the chance to try Slobodan Milosevic first at home, in Serbian

courts, on charges of corruption and for other crimes that drained his country of revenue,

resources, and hope. After Milosevic was demystified with exposure as a common criminal, he

could have then been sent to The Hague. 

Notes 37
38

23.John Ikenberry, “America’s Imperial Ambition,” Foreign Affairs (September-October

2002). For the Bush administration’s own description of the perils and responsibilities of the

twenty-first century, see “The National Security Strategy of the United States,” www.whitehouse.

gov./nsc/nss.html. An excerpt from page 1 follows:

Today, the United States enjoys a position of unparalleled military strength and great

economic and political influence. In keeping with our heritage, and principles, we do

not use our strength to press for unilateral advantage. We seek instead to create a balance of power that favors human freedom: conditions in which all nations and all societies can choose for themselves the rewards and challenges of political and economic

liberty. In a world that is safe, people will be able to make their own lives better. We will

defend the peace by fighting terrorists and tyrants. We will preserve the peace by building good relations among the great powers. We will extend the peace by encouraging

free and open societies on every continent.

24. Mike McFaul, “Bush’s Turn: Dueling Ideologies Make Justification for War Unclear,” San

Jose Mercury News, January 19, 2003; Charles Krauthammer, “The Bush Doctrine: ABM, Kyoto,

and the New American Unilateralism,” Weekly Standard, June 4, 2001; and Paul Rogers, “Political

Violence and Asymmetric Warfare,” University of Bradford discussion paper, revised version

December 31, 2001, www.cer.org.uk/pdf/online_report4.pdf. For information on the Project for

the New American Century, see www.newamericancentury.org. For President George W. Bush’s

speech, see www.whitehouse.gov/new/releases/2002/06/20020601-3.html.

25.Coincidentally, nearly one hundred years ago at Versailles, where the British and French

prepared to carve Iraq from the Ottoman Empire, President Woodrow Wilson affirmed his intentions to commit the United States to “make the world safe for democracy” in an impe-rial vision

unmatched until recently. Also see Michael Ignatieff, “The Burden,” New York Times Magazine,

January 5, 2003. For background on how the power of symbolism and the portrayal of identity

make demands on others to treat the actor accordingly, see the classic that launched a sociological

school of thought: Irving Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (New York:

Doubleday, 1959). Thomas Friedman writes of the “right makes right ethic” in the Middle East in

chapter 4 of From Beirut to Jerusalem (New York: Anchor Books, 1995).

26. Simon Chesterman, “From Kabul to Baghdad: Unfinished Business,” National Interest 1,

no. 8 (October 30, 2002). See at www.inthenationalinterest.com/archives/Vol1Issue8.html.

27. See Minxin Pei and Sara Kasper, “The ‘Morning After’ Regime Change: Should US Force

Democracy Again?” Christian Science Monitor, January 15, 2003; and Tom Carothers, “Promoting

Democracy and Fighting Terror,” Foreign Affairs (January-February 2003).

Notes
39

About the Author

Ray Salvatore Jennings is a senior fellow at the United States Institute of Peace and

teaches at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. He has directed and advised overseas programs for the United States Agency for International Development, the World Bank, and

many nongovernmental organizations in Bosnia, Serbia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Sierra Leone, Peru,

and Afghanistan. He has also served as lead instructor for peacekeepers at the Naval Post Graduate

School in Monterey, California. He has won several citations for his work in postconflict environments in the Balkans and faculty teaching awards for courses on international relations and conflict management. His most recent publications have focused on postconflict reconstruction and

peacebuilding.
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Training for Peace and Humanitarian Relief Operations: Advancing Best Practices, by Robert M.

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(No. 42, January 2002)

Controlling Weapons of Mass Destruction: Findings from USIP-Sponsored Projects, edited by Deepa M.

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Passing the Baton: Challenges of Statecraft for the New Administration, with remarks by Samuel R. Berger

and Condoleezza Rice (No. 40, May 2001)

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National Security and Identity in the Post-Mao Era, by Nan Li (No. 39, May 2001)

El Salvador: Implementation of the Peace Accords, edited by Margarita S. Studemeister (No. 38,

January 2001)

The News Media and Peace Processes: The Middle East and Northern Ireland, by Gadi Wolfsfeld (No. 37,

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edited by Steven M. Riskin (No. 32, December 1999)

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About the Institute

The United States Institute of Peace is an independent, nonpartisan federal

institution created by Congress to promote the prevention, management, and peaceful resolution

of international conflicts. Established in 1984, the Institute meets its congressional mandate

through an array of programs, including grants, fellowships, professional training, education programs from high school through graduate school, conferences and workshops, library services,

and publications. The Institute’s Board of Directors is appointed by the President of the United

States and confirmed by the Senate.

Chairman of the Board: Chester A. Crocker

Vice Chairman: Seymour Martin Lipset

President: Richard H. Solomon

Executive Vice President: Harriet Hentges

Vice President: Charles E. Nelson

Board of Directors

Chester A. Crocker (Chairman), James R. Schlesinger Professor of Strategic Studies, School of

Foreign Service, Georgetown University

Seymour Martin Lipset (Vice Chairman), Hazel Professor of Public Policy, George Mason

University

Betty F. Bumpers, Founder and former President, Peace Links, Washington, D.C.

Holly J. Burkhalter, Advocacy Director, Physicians for Human Rights, Washington, D.C.

Marc E. Leland, Esq., President, Marc E. Leland & Associates, Arlington, Va.

Mora L. McLean, Esq., President, Africa-America Institute, New York, N.Y.

María Otero, President, ACCION International, Boston, Mass.

Barbara W. Snelling, Former State Senator and former Lieutenant Governor, Shelburne, Vt.

Harriet Zimmerman, Vice President, American Israel Public Affairs Committee, 

Washington, D.C.

Members ex officio

Lorne W. Craner, Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor

Douglas J. Feith, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy

Paul G. Gaffney II, Vice Admiral, U.S. Navy; President, National Defense University

Richard H. Solomon, President, United States Institute of Peace (nonvoting)

41
OF RELATED INTEREST

A number of other publications from the United States Institute of Peace focus on conflict and peace in

the Middle East. Note: Most of our reports can be downloaded from our web site at www.usip.org/pubs.

RECENT INSTITUTE REPORTS INCLUDE:

Establishing the Rule of Law in Iraq (Special Report 104, April 2003)

After Saddam Hussein: Winning a Peace If It Comes to War (Special Report 102, February 2003)

Would an Invasion of Iraq Be a “Just War”? (Special Report 93, January 2003)

To obtain an Institute report (available free of charge), visit our web site (www.usip.org); write United States

Institute of Peace, 1200 17th Street NW, Suite 200, Washington, DC 20036-3011; call 202-429-3832; fax 202-429-

6063; or e-mail usip_requests@usip.org.

RECENT BOOKS FROM USIP PRESS INCLUDE:

Religious Perspectives on War: Christian, Muslim, and Jewish Attitudes toward Force, ed. David R. Smock

(revised edition, 2002)

Interfaith Dialogue and Peacebuilding, ed. David R. Smock (2002)

The Enemy Has a Face: The Seeds of Peace Experience, by John Wallach (2000)

A Very Political Economy: Peacebuilding and Foreign Aid in the West Bank and Gaza, by Rex Brynen

(2000)

The Israeli-Syrian Peace Talks: 1991–96 and Beyond, by Helena Cobban (1999)

To order books, call 800-868-8064 (U.S. only) or 703-661-1590, or fax 703-661-1501. Complete book descriptions

are available at www.usip.org/books.

Peaceworks 49

United States

Institute of Peace

1200 17th Street NW

Washington, DC 20036

www.usip.org