Weight of Culture in Nation Building

The United States (US) has conducted nation building in nearly every conflict in which it has been involved. Some of these endeavors, such as Japan and Germany, were successful. Others have been less so. Although the reasons for success or failure are myriad, how important is it for the occupying force to understand the culture of the society that is occupied, and how can this understanding affect the outcome? Iraqi culture is radically different from the US and so it becomes an easy scapegoat for any apparent lack of progress by attributing it to a fundamental misunderstanding of Iraqi culture. Successful nation building in a culture that is very distant from the US is not without precedent. This work analyzes the US occupation of Japan, a nation culturally distant from the US, as a case study to discover what went right and what can be applied to Iraq. RAND offers case studies where cultural understanding appears to play a minor role in the final outcome. There are numerous aspects of the US occupation of Japan, however, that were obviously designed to specifically target Japanese culture and to change it. Culture is important, but the question is how important and at what levels.