Nation-Building is an Oxymoron

Abstract

Abstract: Nations are not built. They form almost imperceptibly from within over long spans of historical time. Since the end of World War II, no country that was not a nation has ever won a counterinsurgency or suppressed a civil war. Field Manual 3-24 Counterinsurgency is wrong because it is premised on the false assumption that support for an existing government can be increased during a civil war/insurgency as a result of the counterinsurgents’ actions. There is no historical evidence to support this assumption.