The Importance of Statebuilding: Additional Contributions from a Military Perspective

Since the early beginning, stability, prosperity and security have been core values for the members of the transatlantic community. Efforts have been made for reconciliation over human lives lost in war, to understand and to solve dramatic changes in societies, to rebuild economies after heavy losses in goods, and to repair and maintain destroyed basic infrastructure; these are still ongoing concerns that present periodical challenges for all participating states. Statebuilding approaches can be described in many theoretical ways, but in practice – based on historical experience – they can be either peaceful or very bloody. In order to realise unknown and extreme factors and to give them adequate answers there is an urgent need for a stable, reliable and effective system.The Hungarian Defence Forces has a long history in peace operations, however, the latest missions conducted, especially in the Balkans and in Afghanistan, provided lots of useful experience related to different statebuilding efforts. In this paper the authors explain the basic general relations between state and the military, in normal – or ideal – circumstances, illustrated – as a comparison – with different elements and factors in statebuilding efforts in case of extreme conditions such as war, failing states or even a hypocritical emergence of state-like entities.