Let's help Haiti, and try to do nation building right this time.
We have a desperate situation on our doorstep, in Haiti. Governance has broken down, and anarchy is rampant, with the usual sad story of gangs, kidnapping, killing, looting, and mayhem. While the US has no formal obligation to help, and we have a long history of trying to help (as well as harm) Haiti, it is hard to stand idly by. The US has a frought history with "nation-building". We started in the nation-destroying business, laying waste to one Native American nation after another. Then we had a turn at destroying our own nation in the Civil War. After that came the quasi-imperial ambitions in the Philippines, the United Fruit Empire of Central America, including Panama and the Canal. The high point was our reconstruction of both German and Japanese societies after the second world war, though these societies were definitely not reduced to anarchy, only to temporary leaderless-ness and penury after the defeats of their somewhat abberrant fascist governments. Our more recent attempts to run countries like Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan have been thoroughgoing disasters, ending in various degrees of embarrassment. Why ask for more?
Notable US activities in Haiti:
- Sided with Whites in Haiti's war for independence (i.e. the slave revolt) ~ 1800
- Waited ~60 years to recognize the resulting Haitian government.
- Occupied Haiti 1915-34.
- Colonial-style trade with France and the US continued to immiserate Haiti, ongoing.
- Occupied Haiti 1994-97 to prop up elected president Jean-Bertrand Aristide.
- Aristide was later ousted in a coup by the Haitian military, which had been extensively supported by the US.
One reason for all this failure is that our nation-building work has never been very conscious. We were faced with weak allies or vanquished enemies, and wanted little more than to have military access for our jihad du jur, and to get out as soon as possible. The social and the long-term was, perhaps with the exception of the post-WW2 reconstructions, always secondary to military objectives. But as we learn, the military is always ultimately political and social as well. As a super-power, we have a naturally narcissistic mind-set, caring little about the dynamics of other countries and having little patience with their deep histories and un-American ways. This has been particularly evident in our building of other nation's militaries, those in Vietnam and Afghanistan being made in our image and promptly failing in our absence.
But another thing that has been evident through all these adventures is that nation-building is very, very important. Our own revolutionary experiment fed us a civic myth of tremendous power and durability. Our many failures, bottoming out with Donald Rumsfeld's scorn of nation-building in Iraq as it melted down in flaming anarchy, should have taught us by now that attending to nation-building is a top priority in any military relationship, and in most international relationships generally. There is no military effectiveness without a national moral and civic ethos behind it.
That leads to the question of whether any nation can "nation-build" for others. Like teenage development, nations develop typically in opposition to others, via revolutions, wars, conquest. "Help" is rarely relevant, and mostly harmful. But hope springs eternal, and sometimes desperate situations call out for a special effort.
What is the situation in Haiti? I am far from an expert, but it is mostly one of collapse of institutions (never competent to start with), amid repeated natural disasters, (indeed, eco-cide on a large scale), huge inequality and corruption, extreme poverty- even starvation, and a custom of right-wing military coups and meddling. We can not expect democracy to be the immediate solution, given the depth and long history of the dysfunction. Some kind of stabilization and gradual re-introduction of governance and civic society needs to be envisioned.
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| Gang-based governance is not working well in Haiti. |
So, contrary to our last few nation-building projects, the one in Haiti needs to be a partnership between a minimal military or police presence and extensive social, civic, economic, and especially governmental / political support. The current administration has announced a very low-key plan of aid and consultation, but no prospect of fixing the underlying dysfunctions. Indeed, food aid and similar kinds of aid are notorious for degrading indigenous agriculture and other non-dependent economic activities. Current development aid is necessarily channeled through the existing structures of the target society, and this tends to increase the divisions and inequality of those societies, introduce corruption, and foist foreign ideas that are sometimes quite harmful. The US project in Afghanistan was certainly well-meaning in its focus on the rights and position of women in the society. But harping on this theme was immensely destructive with respect to any influence we were seeking in conservative areas. In the end, cosmopolitan Kabul collapsed pathetically in the face of traditional values. Engaging Haitians and people with knowledge of Haiti, and willingness to keep an open mind and an ear to the ground, would be essential as we navigate this process.
I would envision a high level commission, of mixed composisiton, with people like Barack Obama, leading Haitians from various sectors, and knowledgeable Biden administration officials, dedicated to going to Haiti and spending a half year or year doing a bottom to top assessment of needs and prospects for reform, principally in government and the economy. It might be a bit reminiscent of the peace process in Northern Ireland that we participated in. The group would issue a recommendation / plan, covering constitutional changes, civic development, security, educational development, and economic development. They also might recommend some sort of conservatorship over higher levels of the government, run through the UN, or the US itself, including peace-keepers, hopefully not carrying cholera, or other temporary security help. At this point, some pressure might have to be brought to bear to force some of the changes and personnel into implementation.
Democracy can't be the first order of business, as conditions and civic culture are so dire. So perhaps a program of progressive democratic development, from local institutions at the start, to progressively higher level elections and political development, could be envisioned, as security and civic conditions improve. A "foster" system might be a bit like the Chinese communist system, where democracy is not front and center(!), but competence is, and the higher levels spend a lot of time figuring out who is effective at lower levels of governance, including aspects such as managerial competence, lack of corruption, people skills, ability to work in an established legal system, economic vision, among much else.
In Haiti, economic reconstruction would not be based on huge influxes of outside aid, but a be concerted effort, as part of the more general governance project, to determine and build the infrastructure for a sustainable indiginous economic basis, perhaps in light industry and agriculture- something like the relationship the US has with Mexico, minus the drugs and immigration. Subsistence agriculture is very popular in Haiti, and presents a fundamental choice for the nation. While the independence and simplicity it represents are understandably attractive, (indeed, consonant with a lot of red state rhetoric from the US), subsistence agriculture can not support an advanced economy. It can not support imports that are obviously desired, and may not even support Haiti's current population with the best security and governance. But whatever the economic choices Haiti makes, better governance would improve its people's conditions and happiness.
One long-term focus would be education. Education in Haiti is run almost entirely on a private basis, at best, via international NGOs. That would not change very soon, but clearly universal, compulsory, and free education is important for improving Haiti's future. General literacy is hardly above 50%. Education stands at the root of Haiti's problems- its lack of economic development as much as its tragic governance. There are many other issues, such as the proliferation of NGOs with private agendas and lack of cooperation with the government, and the way food aid from the US has destroyed native agriculture. Governance is not the only issue, in this extremely poor, ill-educated, and traumatized country, but it is a function that must be fixed if any other aspect of the society is to progress.
Lastly, there is the perennial problem of whom to trust. Foreigners coming into a country, however good-willed, do more harm than good if they do not have good information. Our occupation of Afghanistan was notorious for repeatedly killing the wrong people, because we got information from those who had private grudges or competing interests. Without adopting a state of surveillance and/or terror, how are we to sift wheat from chaff? This is where expertise comes into play, and why sending the military in to run things tends to go haywire, with illusions of power. So we need people who know the language, and something about Haiti. There are a lot of emigre Haitians in the US who could be helpful in that regard.
If we took such a project seriously as a long-term and cooperative venture, we could do a great deal of good in Haiti, which would be positive not only for Haiti, but for the US and our wider interests. Our relations throughout the hemisphere have been strained for decades, ridden with excessive militarism, condescention, colonialism, and the US-sponsored spread of drugs, gangs, and guns. We have a lot to answer for, and should make a greater effort to bring positive change to our friends in this hemisphere.
