From Bosnia to Iraq, the challenge of rebuilding collapsed and war-torn societies has emerged as one of the defining features of the post-Cold War world. Once perceived as errands of mercy, exercises in "nation-building" have since moved to the center of international security concerns. The United States and the United Nations have traditionally assumed the lion’s share of responsibility for these efforts, sometimes working together harmoniously--but often not. Regardless of whether a mission is run from Foggy Bottom or Turtle Bay, postwar reconstruction efforts have suffered consistently from the disconnect between ambitious strategic objectives and meager institutional capabilities.

This event, cosponsored by AEI and the UN Development Program as part of AEI’s series on the future of the United Nations and UNDP's Washington Roundtable series on issues of global development, will take stock of U.S.-UN cooperation and frictions in post-conflict reconstruction efforts and evaluate current plans for strengthening both international capacity and U.S.-UN dialogue for future efforts. Speakers will include UNDP administrator Mark Malloch Brown; Ambassador W. Robert Pearson, the U.S. State Department’s director-general of the Foreign Service and director of human resources; and Larry Diamond of Stanford University's Hoover Institution, who recently served as an adviser on democratic governance to the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq.