The military strategist Thomas Barnett has an interesting (and entertaining) TED talk where he described two different functions the US military needs to fulfill. It responds well to the criticisms presented in this article.
The first: the Leviathan force. This is the military as we know it. Go in an break stuff quickly and thoroughly. Staffed by slightly pissed off, gung-ho young Americans. We're already pretty good at this.
The second: the Systems Administrator. Go into a broken country (by us or otherwise) and 'wage peace'. Help build governments, keep peace, develop social services, etc. Staffed by older, more experienced individuals from a variety of fields who are not (primarily) front-line soldiers. We don't know how to do this.
In truth, no one does.
Through history it seems that rights and representation have typically only manifested after long periods of peaceable post-conquest oppression.
Yeah, I think the issue is that we're not willing to do this. Japan and Germany remained peaceful for a number of reasons. First of all, they knew that they had lost, and lost hard: their cities were in ruins; many of their leaders were dead; a large portion of their populations were dead; and huge numbers of foreigners were occupying their nations, making decisions on their behalf with little consultation. Psychologically, they were cowed.
Secondly, there was still an external existential threat: the Soviet Union (or, for the East Germans, the West). We were considered the lesser of evils, so they were more willing to do our bidding.
We won't reproduce these conditions: we're not going to shatter cities and decimate populations (there's also generally no other existential threat). That's morally good, but it makes successful nation-building much more difficult, or impossible.
We should carefully consider if, given that we won't do what it takes to succeed at a task, it makes sense to attempt it anyway.
The first: the Leviathan force. This is the military as we know it. Go in an break stuff quickly and thoroughly. Staffed by slightly pissed off, gung-ho young Americans. We're already pretty good at this.
The second: the Systems Administrator. Go into a broken country (by us or otherwise) and 'wage peace'. Help build governments, keep peace, develop social services, etc. Staffed by older, more experienced individuals from a variety of fields who are not (primarily) front-line soldiers. We don't know how to do this.
Link:www.ted.com/talks/thomas_barnett_draws_a_new_map_for_peace