The administrator of postwar Germany, Gen. Lucius Clay, complained: "Nobody talked to me about what our policies were in Germany. They just sent me over there." Hoping to finish his unwanted job as soon as possible, Clay set July 1, 1946, as the date for a handover to a civilian government, a deadline that didn't hold. The initial years of the occupation were marred by an internecine conflict between the State and War departments. Have a familiar ring?
Ambitious de-Nazification was a priority, but created chaos. Clay later called de-Nazification his "biggest mistake," a "hopelessly ambiguous procedure." Germany's democratization occurred almost by mistake. Official policy was that "no political activities of any kind [would] be countenanced unless authorized." But political activities on the ground began almost immediately, despite the policy confusion of the Americans. According to Clay, he couldn't even agree with the State Department on the definition of democracy.
Clay at first was instructed not to take any steps to enhance the strength of the German economy. Clay's financial adviser characterized this policy as the work of "economic idiots." Eventually it was fully reversed, but only after Clay threatened to resign in a dispute with the State Department over it. How messy, how bumbling.
Of course, Japan and Germany turned out to be sterling achievements. The broader argument of Ferguson's book is that America is not naturally gifted at nation-building, and it only succeeds when the United States commits to a country for the long-term, giving it the opportunity to get things right despite inevitable setbacks.
Patience, of course, is now in short supply. By the exquisite standards of today's media and the critics of the Iraq War, the men who rebuilt Japan and Germany were incompetents. They had to muddle their way to success through policy failures and bureaucratic infighting. Incompetence can achieve the same success in Iraq, if it's given the chance.