MYERSON: FIVE RULES TO GET STATE-BUILDING RIGHT (2016)

PUBLISHED ON OCTOBER 27, 2016

In a recent Wall Street Journal essay, Roger Myerson assesses the difficult lessons we've learned from recent wars with Iraq and Afghanistan, outlining several key measures and considerations necessary to successful long-term state-building, including decentralized governance and sustainable commitments to friendly governments facing insurgences.

Myerson also recommends the development of a new agency "devoted explicitly to state-building missions, with its own deep bench of Americans with specialized skills." "Done right, state-building can mean not just a freer and more stable world but a stronger and more secure U.S.," he writes, "without the prolonged military entanglements that have cost us and our local partners so dearly." Myerson is the Glen A. Lloyd Distinguished Service Professor of Economics and the College at the University of Chicago.