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

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.