Most great nations throughout history, like the United States, have engaged in one form or another of nation-building. As a rule, it has not gone well. During his recent trip to the Middle East, President Trump addresses this. "The so-called nation builders wrecked far more nations than they built and the interventionists were intervening in complex societies that they did not even understand, themselves. In recent years, far too many American presidents have been afflicted with the notion that it's our job to look into the souls of foreign leaders and use US policy to dispense justice for their sins."
Nation-building is when a great power enters a foreign land, generally by military means, and attempts to conquer and remake that country into their own image. The Egyptians, Macedonians, Greeks, and Romans did it in ancient times. During the second millennium colonial period, the Spaniards, Portuguese, Ottomans, and English led the charge, followed by the French and Germans. As we know from history, the colonial period that Barbara Tuchman described in “The Proud Tower” collapsed in the wake of World War I when entire empires dissolved overnight, leaving behind international chaos.