Of course, the flip side of this argument is that avoiding all the trouble and ill feeling produced by becoming an occupying power means accepting the consequences, and on some level legitimating the values of the losing side.

Certainly this was true during Reconstruction. The salient thing the South hated about the Union victory in the war is that it had ended slavery; the main reason it hated the occupying army was because occupation hindered Southern whites' ability to resume treating Negroes as they always had. Similarly, the fact that so many of the tactics employed by the Iraqi insurgency closely resembled those of the prior Iraqi regime was not an accident. The alternative to occupation was the subjection of the population to all the savagery and barbarism inherent in Arab political culture -- a lesson, incidentally, that had been taught with admirable clarity in Iraq all the way back in 1991.

We ought to be clear about the question, which is not whether American military occupation is better or worse for the people of the occupied country. It is whether an occupation makes sense for us. Can we afford it? Does it make us safer, or promise other benefits worth its cost to us? Are we conscious of and willing to pay the opportunity costs of a protracted, expensive occupation? And, are we well enough prepared for it to minimize the risk of civil disorder or worse, that will require the occupation to last much longer than planned?

If the answer to these questions is "no," then it is prudent to avoid military occupations and to terminate large military commitments where we have them as quickly as possible. Having said that, one thing we should not do is pretend that shunning American military involvement is an act of benevolence toward the people of the lands we choose not to enter. Iraq before 2003 was in the grip of a merciless police state; Afghanistan before 2001 had seen a murderous theocracy succeed a long period of civil war and disorder; Somalia before 1993 suffered devastating famine, Sudan after 2003 saw deliberate genocide, and Congo for many years has seen the most shocking series of barbarous acts because in each case a substantial number of political leaders in these countries wanted these things to happen. It's the kind of people they are.

Dear Mr. Walt I know you have hundred of things to attend to, whereas I just have this. So it is therefore not surprising that it is I that have found the best presentation of your speech on Capitol Hill on October 29, - namely Rand Corporation's own production .
The lighting is better, you look better, there is no disturbing footage of the more or less intelligent looking audience - there is only you and your speech.

And above all there is no need to find the 2.35 point as in the CSPAN broadcast. On the contrary: at this Rand website you can choose any of you four speakers, and indeed can easily find Mr. Pillar as well - the other interesting speaker.

Enjoy. Perhaps you should try to post a link in the margin of this site. I have tried to make your speach available on YouTube, but since it last 11 minutes, I have so far not had any succes, since YouTube has a limit of 10 minutes, but perhaps others can help.

I just have to say, once again, that you'd really benefit from a course in logic; for example, this notion that the South disapproves of Obama due to its occupation 150 years back is truly absurd.

In fact, if you compare the numbers for the South v. other areas of the country, the South is actually more in line with the national consensus: The country overall disapproves of Obama, every age group other than the under-30 crowd disapproves of Obama, every political group other than Dems disapproves of Obama. In fact, if the Gallup data is evidence for anything in relation to your argument, it is the opposite of the conclusion you draw from it.

I'll agree in part, but remember there have been cases where it went fairly well. In Germany we managed to a get a fairly democratic state going out of the wreckage of an obliterated nation. In Japan we created something that looks democratic, even if I'm still not sure if Japan got the hang of it.

On the South I would suggest that we view the geographical differences partially as one of a military occupation and partially as the differences found in any nation, perhaps taken a bit further than some. Prior to the actual American Civil War the South was far less economically developed than the North and relied heavily on cotton for profit. Politically speaking it held less power than the North (witnessed by the fact that Lincoln won the election without even being on the ballot in some Southern states). And of course there was slavery. Reading the legal and political history of the early 19th century makes it clear that slavery was one of the defining issues then. All in all, I would say that even without Reconstruction Obama still would have had a hard time in the South, and that's how it'll probably be for decades at best.

Or were those examples too inconvenient to include?

"The bottom line is that you don't need to be a sociologist, political scientist, or a student of colonialism or foreign cultures to understand why military occupation is such a poisonous activity and why it usually fails."

Though it would be nice to have taken a course on WWII.

jt1928

What part of "usually" do you not understand?

Generally speaking, Dr. Walt is right on the money. After an extended period of time, the indigenous population will inevitably view foreign military forces as...well...both foreign and forceful. When a society has been dominated for years by people of a starkly different background, it is only a matter of time before frustration, humiliation, and anger reaches THE boiling point (a.k.a. insurgent activity). Great Britain's experiences in Iraq, Palestine, Syria, Northern Island, and India are all well noted, as are the French missions in Indochina and Africa. Today, it may be safe to say that the U.S. presence in Afghanistan is increasingly transforming into a 21st century version of European colonialism. Afghans and Americans alike are starting to view the war with extremely pessimistic eyes.

Nevertheless, we must also look at the other side of the equation. Of course a prolonged military occupation will lay the groundwork for local resentment (I doubt Americans would be content with 500,000 European troops patrolling the streets of New York City and Washington for years on end). But even with this universal understanding in mind, it seems that some of us tend to forget to factor in the word PROLONGED.

The Afghan insurgency is not spreading throughout the country because Muslims hate to see the faces of westerners in their country. Rather, the insurgency is expanding due to the U.S. Military's incoherent strategy after eight years of warfare. Minus a few paved roads and a few Al'Qaeda bases destroyed, U.S. forces do not really have much to show ordinary Afghans. I severely doubt that the insurgency would be as strong as it is today if Afghan families were able to live normal lives, absent Taliban intimidation and absent government corruption. On a similar note, I doubt that a short military occupation with clear-cut objectives would produce such a large amount of domestic discontent.

Was it my imagination or wasn't the population of Afghanistan publicly receptive when U.S. troops overthrew the Taliban Regime from power in 2001? It was only after the pathetic excuse of a central authority, the diversion of resources to Iraq, and the emergence of a poor economic environment that Taliban fighters were able to integrate ordinary civilians into their rank-and-file.

History has proven that an occupation can succeed if goals are clearly defined and met in a short-period of time. Germany and Japan are perfect examples (as Grant so amply pointed out). Despite a cataclysmic war that costs millions upon millions of lives- and despite the economic and physical devastation that plagued both societies after the shots ended- the Allies were able to form functional and stable democracies through a combination of military patrolling and civilian reconstruction. With generous donations from the United States, the German and Japanese economies rebounded to levels that most economists would view as impossible. And with an American security commitment, both countries survived adversaries that were bigger in both population and military capability (the Soviet Union, and China). An insurgency was never fully created (minus a few small bouts of criminal activity), thanks to the right combination of order, economic growth, and institutional formation.

Regrettably, it appears that the United States has completely lost the ability to continue this nation-building task.

While Dr. Walt's points are respected, I have to disagree with his central thesis. It is not military occupation per say, but what the occupier does that resonates with the local people. When foreign powers fail to respect culture and neglect to understand local grievances- as the United States is doing now- we should not be surprised to find a domestic intifada in the works.

http://depetris.wordpress.com

Professor Walt,

To balance out your interpretation of Southern Reconstruction, maybe you need to venture into Southern black communities for a minute and hear what kinds of songs they were singing about Northern troops. I assure you, such tributes weren't nearly as hostile.

This is one of the problems with social science renderings of history: they can tell you *what* happened, but not why. It wasn't the mere fact of occupation that was so repugnant to Southerners; it was the political ideas that accompanied occupation. Since the 1920s, there's been a kind of romanticizing of the old South, an idea that Southern protests against the North were merely done to protect the Southern "way of life," with little attention paid to the political ideas that animated such protest. The question is whether or not such protestations were legitimate. Yes, occupation engenders hostility. But that's not the only issue that we have to -- or should -- contend with. And as I'm sure you're aware, there are many players out there, not all of whose (political) views are equally deserving of deference.

You're right, of course, about all the negative effects of occupation. But to blame Southern disfavor of Obama on Reconstruction? Don't you think they had issues with folk such as Obama anyway? Like since 1619, at least?

One could turn your comment around and say this: from the 1863 (in some places in the South) to 1877, blacks enjoyed some civil and political rights. they only did so because of a military occupation. From 1877 to 1957, that military occupation was expelled and civil and political rights for blacks reduced and denied. After 1954 the federal government put itself nominally on the side of the restoration of some civil rights, which provoked resistance from the white population, and again the federal government stepped in with troops.

The great changes that have occurred in the South in the last 50 years are unimaginable without a show of force and a federal presence. The end of slavery is unimaginable without the Union Army.

I think back to the story of Omar Plessey.

Before the Civil War, New Orleans was the epitomy of racial diversity. Afterwards, it was the reaction to oppressive and heavy-handed reconstruction/occupation that soured the deal.

By 1898, Omar, one of the whitest black guys you could ever find (light skinned, upscale, well-spoken)got on a Whites only train in New Orleans, and with apologies, was convicted of a $25 fine by Judge Ferguson. His supporters believed that this was the perfect test case to through off separate facilities laws that emerged in the wake of reconstruction/occupation.

The killer in the deal was Washington, DC's Supreme Court that, bucking New Orleans' minimal separation attitudes, took Plessey's minimal local challenge as a cause celeb for the racial/social venom embedded in the Court. Thus, Plessey v. Ferguson became the DC sanction for a wave of separate-but-unequal Jim Crow laws that swept the South, from DC on down.

Thurgood Marshall spent a career trying to undo the 1898 Supreme Court action, not local New Orleans racism bred of 1870's reconstruction/occupation.

Sorry if history is a little more complicated, but, having made that point, I agree that prolonged occupation that either intentionally or unintentionally disrupts local economies, societies, dignity and quiet enjoyment creates hostility. I also agree that, with Iraq and Afghanistan as case studies, we do not presently have a successful mechanism for happy, prosperous nation-building.

I totally agree with you. no body likes occupation, no matter what the intentions. high handedness never works. we should learn from the British colonialism.
where ever there have been occupations there have been resistance movements. we only need to look around the globe. from Palestine to Kashmir to Iraq.

why don't the occupiers ever get this!?

You write "killing innocent people by mistake" and "engaging in other forms of indiscriminate violence," a much more honest formulation than the usual "collateral damage" and "we never intentionally kill civilians." But it should be said our soldiers have openly admitted killing civilians intentionally, and with malice. And keep in mind the way military recruitment standards have been lowered to include ex-cons, gang members, people with blunt intelligence, etc. We're also sending people with psychiatric illness on multiple deployments. The nasty cop is unpleasant, but imagine a 23 year old hopped up on pills, mostly out of his mind, carrying an M-16, seething with hatred for English-speaking men in suits and their wide-eyed children, and a license to kill. That's what the Iraqis have had to endure for years. The tolerance and restraint of Arab peoples is remarkable.

Introducing the Civil War is a pathetic example and is in no way, shape, or form similar to current countries occupied by the U.S... Where was the mention of religious ideology as a major component from where a large portion of this hate is derived? Hate existed prior to either invasion and yes, some has been fueled by occupation; however, by not warranting the concept of religion as being a factor is quite intellectually dishonest. Anyone who is a proponent of human rights, women's rights, and children's rights could argue on those merits alone as these are all topics worthy of discussion. They are extremely controversial and intervening in matters such as these can be designated as one nation infringing upon the culture of the other, since, yes, RELIGION plays a role as to how women's roles are dictated within the society. Education is another area of human rights where the same instance can apply and these are issues having right now in both Iraq and Afghanistan. What about the plight of the Kurds in northern Iraq? You know the world's largest population of a single identity that does not have a designated territory to designate as their country? They have been abandoned by both the U.N. and the United States; do they finally merit attention from the global community?? Environmental destruction in Iraq's marshes?? Women having the right in Afghanistan made lots of people really angry and of course, allowing children to go to school. Bin laden has recently called for the destruction of the Hindu religion and return of Kashmir to Islamic theocracy and yes those are many reasons they are mad. The other day I saw a woman who was accused of adultery in Afghanistan where there was not trial or jury, just a quick burst to the back of the head by an Ak-47. Did she deserve a fair trial?? What is to happen to all of the families who collaborated with U.S. forces once the troops pull out? I should say NATO as this is a joint occupation, however as usual; America has to take on the brunt of the operation. What will the Taliban do when they return to children and women? Will neighborhood's in Iraq where Shiite lives beside Sunni, erupt into violence across the country and leave thousands dead? What is to happen to the Kurds?

Is their anywhere in the world where it would be justified for U.S intervention at a level similar to both Iraq and Afghanistan (Please don’t say WWII, it is too early for me to vomit at such a programmed response)?? Many people arguing the same point as the one above also thought Darfur was worth an intervention only to witness one of the U.N.'s most embarrassing failures. Also, the Chinese were trading weapons for oil with the Sudanese government; as this provides an excellent example that illustrates enormous complexities that exist. Should the U.S. ever intervene anywhere (Bosnia)?? Why there and not somewhere else? Where would you intervene? Why would you not support intervention anywhere?

Let me be clear that I am not supporting or advocating occupation in either country as my goal is to raise questions that challenge the ethical and moral realm of the intellect. However, I do think it will take about 30 years before justifiable criticism can be applied (not proponent or opponent) judgment can at least be made on Iraq. I do know that there are numerous places across the globe where U.S. troops have occupied in the past where American military presence was not associated with discontent and hatred among the local population. Some of this hatred might derive from notion that local people derive from questions surrounding commitment by U.S. forces and are aware of upcoming repercussions they might be subject towards receiving harsh treatment. I have friends who have served in both theatres of operation and I am told that there are people who like their presence and some who oppose. Only wanting to introduce questions, which I thought require serious thought and hopefully will inspire debate. Could their possibly be a sect of the population whose hate is derived from religious ideology? Is that a valid question?

As a South Carolina native, I found the suggestion that the Civil War might offer a plausible scenario to make a viable comparison quite laughable. Also, the notion that only the "South" has given Obama lower marks as of recent is not only dishonest as it expresses a lack of respect for the readers as once again Walt has insulted the intellectual capacity of this audience by offering numbers of which he knows himself retain no merit.

Is occupation insulting and may explain reasoning for the presence of hatred among the populations in Iraq and Afghanistan? Of course, but is it the only reason? Nope.

I agree we in Ireland still remember the atrocities committed by the British in an attempt 'to benevolently civilize' us in spite of constant struggle for our freedom.This is a lesson that must me learned by others or it will be doomed to be repeated...

This article makes me think of several derivative issues.

One, aren't there several different 'types' of occupation. I don't mean the means by which a foreign power dominates another, but the justification they give. Gone are the days of occupying in the name of Empire or 'mission civilsatrice.' Now it seems like either an occupation justified by a need to protect the homeland, or an occupation justified by the need for more time to build the occupied nation for its own good (Isn't that kinda the same as mission civilsatrice?). Obviously the first would generate more resentment than the second, particularly if the second is producing tangible results (rarely the case).

Secondly, the President seemed to draw a binary distinction in his Cairo speech when, in speaking to the Palestinians, he said that violence is how "moral authority is surrendered." He then went on to cite the civil rights struggle. I always wondered by he cited the 1960s and not the 1770s? So he seems to be appealing to a people with no history of civil disobedience and no visionary leadership - to do something that is categorically alien to their experience. But then again, prior to Ghandi or MLK, what experience of non-violent protest did Indians or African Americans have?

The third issue is that of occupation of Muslims in particular. As a Muslim myself and a student of Islamic History I don't see any precedent in our civilization, (and precedent is EVERYTHING to us) with its vast array of cultures, ethnicities, races, dynasties, and empires - that would speak to the possibility of non-violent responses to occupation. This obviously builds off of the second point. But the point is that - of the three major pre-modern embarassments (modernity has almost exclusively been an embarassment to us) to the 'Muslim World,' NONE were resisted by civil disobedience. One of the three, the case of the Reconquista, wasn't even an occupation, it was a purge and expulsion. The other two were the Crusades and more importantly, the Mongol Invasions. The Crusades were repelled martially, and the Mongols were accepted in, themselves assimilated, and became the forefathers of all three of the eastern 'gun-powder' empires.

The fourth thought is about modern methods of dealing with occupation for Muslims. Did it work? Only when there was a multi-generational committment to systematically alter the socialization process and schooling (soft or smart power) of the occupied, did it remotely work. I'm thinking here of the French experience in Morocco, Lebanon and Algeria. Morocco probably fared the best and emerged with most of its culture in tact, but even there the remnants of the colonial occupation are still self evident in the structure of the economy and nature of social promotion.

Bottom line, particularly concerning the occupation of Muslims, unless your people have committed to decades of entanglement, which means martial committment, you're not going to get what you want.

And even if you're up for it, the full weight of historical experience is what you're going against.

Good Luck!

One is no US historian, but remembering what I had studied a long time ago, I recall that, President Lincoln in his inauguration, expressed that he had no intention to abolish slavery in those states wher it had already existed, but that he would not accept secession. The Marxians usually refer to the need for a labour power in the ever expanding industrial base of the North, thus, eventually the freedom of slaves. Maybe others; ie non-Marxists also agree with this scenario.

I don't believe calling on the paradigm of the IInd World War, to draw similarities with the present would be correct; at least how I see it. For a start, there is no world war circumstances when it comes to the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, and secondly, in the cases of Japan, Germany, and Italy as well as elesewhere, the majot arbiter that pushed the US for clear, effecient and rapid re-constrauction programmes, was the spectre of Communism. The west headed by the USA, was preparing for a long haul against Communism; which became later on the Cold War, but in the case of Iraq and Afghnistan, neither Iran nor Taliban carry the same punch as Kim Il Sung's North Korea, or Satlin's Soviet Empire. Moreover, it is not a long haul that the US and the west is preparing for, rather an effective exit strategy; at least from Iraq.

Rightly or wrongly, the US went into Afghanistan to exact revenge for the attacks on mainland USA. Is the US now, satisfied with its revenge?. I suppose its future actions will provide the answer. And it went into Iraq; without really much ado, in order to show all its military prowess, guided by a dogma at the time, and encouraged by Israel, that toppling Saddam Hussein will bring benefits to the future of the region. How will things play out?, we have to wait a bit.

Finally, anyone with even cursory knowledge of the Arab history, will notice that at least since the 18th.century, the people whom seem to have shown an inherent violent tendencies, are those involved in the Arab world from outside it. There is nothing inherently violent about the Arabs, rather the fact that, the history of the elites ruling it shows that they have used their powers of ideology, economics and coercion, in order to prohibit any institutional attempts, to create mechanisms for solving disagreements via peacable means. Mind you, with the full blessings of their international friends.
khairi janbek.paris/france

Zathras refers to "all the savagery and barbarism inherent in Arab political culture" and Sin Nombre avers "that there's something—so far at least—in the arab culture that seems to tolerate if not actively desire horrible strongmen and/or regimes."

Let's not be too one-sided here. The main toleraters and desirers of 'horrible strongmen and/or regimes' is the government of the United States, which supports the undemocratic, hated, and oppressive regimes in let's see, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia, Jordan to name just a few.

As for savagery and barbarism: I assume you are Americans, like me. Few countries can match the record of sustained savagery and barbarism of the United States outside its borders since 1900, from the Philippine-American War through the Vietnam War, which killed 3-4million, right up to the drone bombings of civilians which continue today. The elected representatives of the American people have done little to date to mitigate the savagery and barbarism of today's wars and therefore one may reasonably conclude that from the torture of detainees to the aerial bombardment of civilians the American people are far more complicit in savagery and barbarism than the people of any Arab country, who have not chosen, and indeed rather despise, the regimes that we prop up with our subsidies and weapons.

RE: "...why military occupation is such a poisonous activity and why it usually fails..."

MY COMMENT: All that matters is whether it gets us closer to the Rapture™.

P.S. Let's not forget the phenomenal Canadian lyricist Robbie Robertson (of 'The Band').

"The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" lyrics (excerpted)
...Back with my wife in Tennessee,
when one day she called to me
"Virgil, quick, come see,
there go the Robert E.Lee"
Now I don't mind choppin' wood,
and I don't care if the money's no good
Ya take what ya need and ya leave the rest
But they should never have taken the very best...
...Like my father before me,
I will work the land
And like my brother above me,
who took a rebel stand
He was just eighteen, proud and brave,
but a Yankee laid him in his grave
I swear by the mud below my feet
You can't raise a Caine back up when he's in defeat...

WIKIPEDIA - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Night_They_Drove_Old_Dixie_Down

RE: "Military occupation generates resistance because it is humiliating, disruptive, arbitrary and sometimes terrifying to its objects...If you've ever been...selected out for special attention crossing a border (ditto), you have a mild sense of what this is like." - WALT

FROM HAARETZ,11/14/08 : (excerpt) ...Last week, soldiers from the Golani infantry brigade posted a video on YouTube depicting a blindfolded Palestinian being forced to repeat phrases in Hebrew as the soldiers manning the checkpoint laugh in the background. 
One of the lines is: "Golani will bring you a log to stick up your ass." 

As the detainee repeats the words, the soldiers are heard laughing raucously in the background.... 

ARTICLE / VIDEO - http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1037217.html

Short Comment:

The Moon is Down
John Steinbeck

Military occupation made simple.

PS: Nice to see you guys from Phil's blog over here.

FPM

PPS:
The captcha words to test if I'm a human visitor or a spambot are "sellout US". Apt!

Brett:

All true about reconstruction, but the specifics of Omar Plessey's story, based in the actual New Orleans and the facts and local perceptions surrounding why he took that case to the Supreme Court are unique. The sad result is of a profound miscalculation about the venomous nature of the Supreme Court on this issue, and the same in many other areas.

For me, it stands for the point that loose generalizations, like the assumption that all Southerners were slave owners, are not always as enlightening as they appear.

Of course, Thurgood Marshall spent decades unravelling each of the threads of segregation before he, again, took a chance of going to the Supreme Court with the Brown Cases.

And Brown settled little. Anne Arundel County (Annapolis), Maryland, for example, established a "committee" after Brown to study implementation, but remained as aggressively segregated as anywhere in the Deep South until 1973. At one point in the 1960's, the military commander on Fort Meade resigned from the committee claiming that they were actually there to perpetuate, not end, segregation. In fear that his position would lead to further federal intervention, the County proceeded to "establish" County public schools in old buildings on the Fort and declared them desegregated. Those county schools are still on post today, but few understand how they got there in the first place.

A nasty time.

The last paragraph succintly captures the essence of hoe a people feel to be occupied by an unfriendly power. Yes, there are consequences for not baring one's teeth and biting if need be, but for the most part, recent American military options seems to be rather exclusine. By this we view US action as arbitrary and many times unnecessary.
The current imbroglio on Irans nuclear programme is an example. Historically, Iran has never attacked the US or even Israel despite all the rhetoric. But the US seems to be moving inexorably toward a "military option" pushed on by Israel.
Surely, the Pakistani issue could have been best habndled by urging dialogue with the warring parties since a military victory seems remote no matter the level of waeponry and troops deployment. The same situation applies in Afghanistan. Ontop of all this is the seming US willignes to partner with dictators in other nations so long as theynshare USs' world view.

American Exceptionalism makes us believe that when we go around the world to occupy or dictate other countries how to run their lives, we do it out of the benevolent intention to bring democracy or to help them helping themselves. With a high overdose of spoon-fed propaganda using all medium of communications available, the American people is being fed with "news" that depicted the good quality and how the others hate us. The American people is gullible and would not ask pertinent questions that any human being with a modicum amount of intelligence would have asked. We are educated or primed not to ask questions or analyze events. I would say with certainty that the majority of the US population does not know that the US troops are doing things in Afghanistan and Iraq that are reprehensible. How long could this ignorance last? Those who always on the forefront to answer the question: Why do they hate us? Would not give the proper answer, they would rather rehash the same childish answer...they hate us for our freedom.

John Mearsheimer on the Afghan quagmire:

http://america-hijacked.com/2009/11/03/john-mearsheimer-on-the-afghan-quagmire/

The Bottom Line (to the Afghan quagmire):

http://tinyurl.com/yjwdlw6

benevolent motives? what nonsense.

the freedom of the grave and the democracy of death.

Looks like we are going to do the same in Afghanistan.