As much as I lament the quality of leadership at the moment (and not just in the US) I am not sure that we can equate Afghanistan with Germany.

It is one thing to denazify a "modern western country" that shares most of your values, culture and religion, and that has had institutions for some time. It is another thing altogether to pull off the deal in a country that has never had a working civil society, civil institions, education, etc. Especially if you do not share it's culture or religion, and there is a part of the country that is still actively engaged in a military campaign to obstruct you.

Not saying that it couldn't be done, or that mistakes weren't made. Just that you can't compare the two like that.

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throaway5445454 12 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The US totally blew it in Afghanistan and its well-documented how most of the initiatives there failed due to corruption and mismanagement.

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dghlsakjg 10 hours ago | parent [-]

The underlying theory that the GP is getting at is that Japan and Germany were easy to rebuild because they had existing institutions and a society that trusted institutions. The idea is that it is kind of a self fulfilling prophecy; germany and Japan will "remember" how to be civilized, but under different leadership, Afghanistan and Iraq cannot revert to that.

It leans heavily on assumptions about countries and institutions.

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throaway5445454 9 hours ago | parent [-]

It's true to an extent, but its not what happened in Afghanistan.

	▲	dghlsakjg 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I don't doubt that, I was just explaining the argument. It has been recently popularized in tech circles by a viral appearance by professor Sarah Paine on the Dwarkesh podcast. I am fully willing to believe that the US royally fucked up the rebuild of Afghanistan.

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jhbadger 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

That could explain the success of rebuilding Germany, as it shared a lot culturally with the US, but what about Japan? Japan was, and to a large extent still is, a very alien culture, and yet the US rebuilt it extremely effectively.