How does the fact that the United States is a democracy make nation-building more difficult?
There’s been a big discussion — especially since Iraq — about whether America is an empire or not. Certainly we’re involved in a lot of countries, and we have a kind of imperial reach, and people see us that way. But Americans are really not comfortable with this. They don’t like the idea of ruling other people, and they’re not in it for the long haul. They have no desire, like the British did in India, to rule in perpetuity. One of the big problems is that we are subject, as a democracy, to momentary enthusiasms for undertaking projects of various sorts. But a lot of times we don’t have the staying power to see them through to the end.
