Failed States: The New Threat to America

Martin E. Goldstein
Widener University

    Throughout history, states have been on guard against threats that emanate from strong countries. Usually, these threatening states have been situated close to the country that feels threatened. Perhaps no better example of such behavior can be found than the case of Europe during the era of classical balance of power, namely, the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. During this time, the more powerful states of Europe constantly shifted alignments, depending on which state or combination of states threatened to dominate. Today, we see many examples of states taking action to protect themselves against the possible aggression of other states that match or closely match their own military strength. India versus Pakistan, Israel versus its Arab neighbors, and China versus Russia are just a few such instances. Of course, since the advent of air power and missiles, countries cannot afford to concern themselves only with nearby states that might pose threats. Thus, during World War II, the United States was concerned with Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. During the cold war, the United States and the Soviet Union both were troubled by the possibility of aggression by the other superpower. Peering into the future, some analysts perceive the dim outlines of a conflict between the United States and China. Let us remind ourselves that in all these cases, the country that felt threatened concentrated on militarily powerful states as the source of danger.
        It is the contention of this paper that a new source of menace now stalks the planet. This new source does not replace the traditional one but rather adds a new level of threat to the minuet of international politics. What is this new threat? Some observers term it “failed states.”
Definition of Failed States
        Failed states represent a new category of country. As such, the term has yet to pass through the intellectual purification process that (sometimes) results in a lucid and generally accepted definition. Like pornography, it is easier to recognize than to define.
        Most fundamentally, a failed state is one where the government lacks control over much of the country. There is much variation here. In some countries, such as Afghanistan, the government determines what happens in the capital city but practically nowhere else. In the Sudan and Angola, the government controls regions beyond the capital but clearly does not have sovereignty over large swaths of the country.
        Practically all failed states are poor, but not all impoverished states fall into the category of failed states. Indeed, the vast majority of developing countries does not fall into the category of failed states. Cuba and North Vietnam are deemed low-income countries, but their governments remain in firm control of the land inside their boundaries.
        A common feature of failed states is the inability to provide the most basic services that citizens expect from government today. There is no need more fundamental than security. Indeed, some theorists maintain that security is the principal reason why citizens agree to give up certain freedoms to form a government. Without a government to make and enforce laws, the reasoning goes, people would remain at the mercy of the most ruthless, unprincipled ruffians. Furthermore, no army would exist to protect citizens from attack from abroad. It seems fair to say, then, that at the very least citizens expect government to provide that minimum of law and order that protects them from assault from local villains and invasion from foreign armies. Governments of failed states are not even able to provide this most basic level of protection. To the contrary, inhabitants of failed states are often left to the mercy of roving bands of robbers, drug syndicates, ethnic militias and religious fanatics. In some cases, such as Somalia, some of these organizations have stronger fighting forces than the government. In the Congo, where approximately three million citizens have been murdered or displaced, domestic militias plus at least seven outside armies have been waging war for years.
        Aside from security, citizens expect other services from government. A partial listing would include schools, health care, safe drinking water, and the availability of food. To be sure, inhabitants of developing countries do not expect such services to meet the standards in the industrialized democracies. However, citizens expect some level of delivery of these necessities. In failed states, though, the government can meet these needs only in areas under government control (and sometimes not even then). Where the government is absent, it can hardly offer assistance to the people living there. Is it any wonder, then, that the government receives such little support from the people?
        People also desire political rights and freedoms. In the contemporary world, an increasing number of people want some say over who will be in the government and what policies that government will enact. They also want the opportunity to voice their opinions on how well the government is performing. To an increasing degree, people claim the opportunity to change the government. People feel entitled to speak out and demonstrate against corruption and ineptitude. They call for a free press to report and evaluate what elected (or other) officials are doing. Freedom of religion is also a common demand. All this is not to say that citizens insist on a government that conforms to the very highest standards that exist anywhere on earth. Many citizens would be satisfied with a small modicum of these services, perhaps the first steps toward improved government. However, in failed states, governments rarely provide any of these requirements, especially in areas outside government control.
        Some states have functioning central governments, yet contain geographic areas where the government cannot or does not exert control. These areas make up only a small portion of the entire country, so it is not clear whether such countries merit the label failed state. The Philippines, for example, contains geographical enclaves where the government has little or no presence. In consequence, the Abu Sayyaf Group, an Al Qaeda affiliate, has operated in the southern Philippines in spite of repeated efforts by government troops to eradicate this organization.
        Another such area is situated where Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay meet. According to Jessica Stern, this region “has become the world’s new Libya, a place where terrorists with widely disparate ideologies—Marxist Colombian rebels, American white supremacists, Hamas, Hezbollah, and others—meet to swap tradecraft.” (Quoted in Nacos, 117) The significance of this area is underlined by the fact that a map of the area was found in an Al Qaeda safe house in Afghanistan. Militant Islamists who established training facilities in this sector are reportedly using the region as a launching pad to recruit throughout Latin America. (Nacos, 117)
        The concept of failed states, as we have seen, is not easy to define with precision. The chief characteristic of such states is the absence of government control over much of the country’s territory. It follows, therefore, that the governments of failed states are unable to provide the political, economic and social services citizens expect. Thus, these governments enjoy a low standard of legitimacy even in those regions where it exerts authority.
        Out of the world’s approximately 200 states, how many are failed states? Because there is no universally accepted definition of failed states, it is impossible to say definitively how many countries fall into this category. However, the World Bank has identified about 30 “low-income countries under stress,” while Britain’s Department for International Development has named 46 “fragile” states of concern. A report commissioned by the CIA has put the number of failed states at about 20. (“The Failed States Index”)
        Which countries merit the designation “failed state?” Again, since there is no commonly accepted definition of this term, it is difficult to compile an agreed roster of states that fall into this classification. The “Failed States Index”report cited above lists the following countries in descending order of failure: Ivory Coast, Democratic Republic of Congo, Sudan, Iraq, Somalia, Sierra Leone, Chad, Yemen, Liberia, Haiti, Afghanistan, Rwanda, North Korea, Colombia, Zimbabwe, Guinea, Bangladesh, Burundi, Dominican Republic, Central African Republic, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. One notes the substantial number of failed states—12 in fact—on the continent of sub-Saharan Africa.
Iraq: Headed for State Failure?
        Iraq is already listed in the report mentioned above as a failed state. However, since the country is in a time of transition, one might inquire into the likely future of that unfortunate land. Of course, no one can say with certainty what the future holds for that country. This author believes, nevertheless, that Iraq is headed for even more pronounced state failure once the Americans pull out.
        Let us recall that the essential ingredient of state failure is the inability of the government to exert control over much of the country.  Fabricating a peaceful co-existence among Iraq’s ethnic and religious groups will remain a Herculean challenge. To begin with, the Kurds don’t even want to be part of Iraq. They recall chemical attacks upon their villages by Saddam’s Sunni warriors. Is it any wonder that they would prefer to join with their fellow-Kurds in Syria and Iran to form the new country of Kurdistan. The Shi’ites and the Sunnis appear much more anxious to settle old scores and exact retribution than to join together in building a nation. In the south, the marsh Arabs, nearly decimated by Saddam Hussein’s soldiers, feel they have little in common with other peoples of Iraq. Forging national unity out of such clashing entities will present any Iraqi regime with a daunting task.
        Such an assignment would be at least somewhat more manageable in a country with a tradition of toleration and compromise. However, as the almost daily tattoo of murders and assassinations drums on, one finds little of these traits in evidence.
        One strategy for building national unity in a divided country is economic development. Improving living standards go far to defang popular dissatisfaction with a government. Perhaps in the not too distant future Iraq might travel down this road. For the immediate future, however, such a trek seems unlikely. Even three years after the war, the country’s infrastructure remains in a shambles. Iraqi citizens are understandably furious about the lack of reliable electricity and water supplies. Even petroleum in this oil-rich country is in short supply. Many bridges remain down and unrepaired roads present more of an obstacle course than a means of transportation. Massive unemployment plagues the land. These conditions are unlikely to last forever. So long as they prevail, however, Iraq will find it difficult to crawl out of the pit of a failed state.
        Citizens are more likely to feel loyalty to a government and obey its laws, if that government provides them with basic services. As we have seen, such services include but are not limited to health care, education, energy, transportation, security from internal and external threats, and a chance to influence government policies. The nascent Iraqi regime is able to supply few of these services in the midst of the current insurrection.
        American troops are unlikely to remain in Iraq forever. Once they withdraw, a new government will seek to pull Iraq up from its status as a failed state. No one knows what the future will hold. It seems unlikely, however, that Iraq will depart from its traditional pattern. Since the British created the country after World War I, a military strongman has periodically seized control to rescue the land from chaos. Such an eventuality might well come to pass in the years ahead. Hopefully, Iraq’s new military ruler will be more humane than Saddam Hussein.
Threats Posed by Failed States
        Why should the United States, or any other country, for that matter, be concerned with failed states. After all, these are the weakest states in the system. Traditionally, countries have stood on guard against powerful states, and for good reason. It is powerful states that have invaded neighbors, destroyed cities, colonized other lands, and caused other kinds of harm. Most of the severest man-made calamities the world has witnessed have been caused by powerful states’ overwhelming their neighbors.
        Failed states present a different type of threat. There is little prospect that they will invade other countries and sew death and destruction. Instead, failed states allow evil organizations to occupy portions of territory and manage them like sovereign entities. It is the very weakness of these governments that incapacitates them from ousting such interlopers. The national army has no presence in the regions where these malignant groups move in. Furthermore, these groups possess military forces quite adequate to protect them from any assaults from the country’s armed forces.
        Who are these malevolent organizations? For the most part, they represent the very threats that most Western democracies place at the top of the list of foreign policy concerns: terrorists, drug cartels, and proliferators of weapons of mass destruction (chemical, biological and nuclear weapons). Practically without exception, these groups have little sympathy for anything Western; in most cases, they are dedicated to causing the West great harm.
        Afghanistan presents an example of a failed state. After the terror attacks of 9/11/2001, the terrorist group Al Qaeda moved into Afghanistan. There, it took over part of the country and ruled this area as though it were the legitimate government. Al Qaeda used the territory to train terrorists, experiment with bomb-making, practice the use of various other weapons, plan future operations, offer a sanctuary for operatives, and engage in other activities essential to their mission. The Taliban government certainly sympathized with their cause. When the U.S. government demanded that the Taliban hand over Al Qaeda leaders and close down their operations, the Taliban refused. There is little prospect, however, that the Taliban had the capability to shut down Al Qaeda operations on its own soil. Eventually, the American military moved in, replaced the Taliban government, and inaugurated the hunt for Osama Bin Laden and his associates. Even today, Afghanistan remains a failed state. The country now accounts for 90 percent of the world’s opium.  A UN survey reported that 321,000 acres were cultivated recently for poppy growing, despite laws prohibiting such enterprise. (Gurtov, p. 124). The government is simply not capable of eradicating such activities.
        Colombia is another failed state where the drug trade flourishes, all illegally. Again, the government lacks control over the areas where the growers and processors operate.
        While Pakistan does not appear on every list of failed states, the country does hover on the edge of that category. Much of western Pakistan, along the border with Afghanistan, lies outside government control. In this extremely mountainous section of the country, it is believed that Osama Bin Laden might be in seclusion. According to a recent report in The New York Times, militants “now dispensed their own justice, ran their own jails, robbed banks, shelled military and civilian government compounds and attacked convoys at will. They are recruiting men from the local tribes and have gained a hold over the population through a mix of fear and religion….” (The New York Times).
        Pakistan also represents a situation that also poses a threat to Western (and other) countries. The regime possesses nuclear weapons. Already, there have been several attempts on the life of the president, General Musharraf. Should a future attempt succeed, or should the government collapse for some other reason, the security of nuclear weapons and fissile material would remain in doubt. An extremist group—Taliban? Al Qaeda? Another?—might well perceive an opportunity to steal some of this material.
        Several other failed states possess chemical weapons. These too could fall into the hands of extremists who have set up camp in an unpatrolled region of he country.
        If one examines the foreign policy priorities of most Western countries, one will find three items at the top: halting the spread of WMD, combating terrorism, and stopping the trade in illegal drugs. The existence of failed states complicates all these efforts. Where governments leave territory uncontrolled, terrorists, WMD proliferators and drug syndicates can move in. All three pose a lethal threat.
Why Do States Fail?
        Just as there are many roads to success, so there are various roads to failure. Studies of failed states reveal that there is no necessary and sufficient cause for the collapse of a state. However, where a state experiences failure, usually one or more of the following conditions is present.
        From the list of failed states mentioned earlier, one common factor emerges. All the states on that list suffer from poverty. Not all poor states decline into failure, however. Indeed, the majority of impoverished states do not fall into that category. That being said, however, widespread poverty does nothing to create bonds of loyalty between a government and its citizens. Where many people live below the poverty line, governmental legitimacy is low. Citizens do not rush to make sacrifices to support a government against warlords or political extremists. Furthermore, in poor lands, the government lacks the resources to pay for the basic services citizens now demand from political authorities, such as roads and markets and health care. When a government provides these and other services, citizens return the favor with political loyalty, thus saving the state from failure.
        Ethnic and religious warfare can also propel a state to failure. Dating from the colonial heritage, many states—particularly in Africa—include ethnic and religious minorities with long histories of hatred. In a totally rational world, such groups would not find themselves in the same country. However, the colonial powers did not bother about such niceties in stretching their empires as far as they could reach. When the empires collapsed, many of the new states found themselves embracing groups whose only common attribute was hatred of each other.
        Often, both religion and ethnicity join to compound the differences and animosity between such groups. Sudan presents such a case. Muslims in the north share the culture of Arabia. Tribalists in the south subscribe to various religions we might label traditional. Culturally, the southerners have next to nothing in common with the Arabs in the north.  Thus, religion and ethnic identification join to heighten the animosity between these parties. The most unfortunate results of this stew are to be found in the Darfur region of the country.
        Yugoslavia offers another instance of a state catapulted to failure due to religious and ethnic hatred. Of the several diverse parties to be found there, three stand out for the ferocity of their contention. These are the Bosnian Muslims, the Serbian Orthodox Christians, and the Croatian Catholics. As in Sudan, religion and ethnic identification join to reinforce their rivalry. Only a peacekeeping force sent in by NATO keeps these people from resuming their brutal warfare.
        Governmental corruption and ineptitude increase the likelihood that a state will plummet into failure. Where these traits run rampant, citizens quickly become alienated from their government. Thus, they show little enthusiasm for defending it against any groups challenging the central political authority.
        Geography can also boost the likelihood that a state will experience failure. Impenetrable jungles and impassable mountains create havens where drug cartels, terrorists, ethnic militias and the like can establish themselves with little fear of governmental interference. Thus, it is not clear that any government of Afghanistan has ever exercised sovereignty over the mountainous regions of the country. The 1,000-plus islands that make up Indonesia present a formidable challenge for the government. It is no wonder that extremists have found refuge on some of these distant shores.
        As said before, there is no single cause of state failure. However, the likelihood that a state will experience failure is heightened by the presence of poverty, ethnic and religious warfare, governmental corruption and ineptitude, and circumstances of geography. To be sure, not all states that must contend with these factors are failed states. Nevertheless, when a country has to cope with several of these factors, the chances of state failure rise.
American Policy Toward Failed States
        Failed states compound the difficulty in achieving three of America’s highest foreign policy priorities, namely, combating terrorism, halting the spread of WMD, and keeping illegal drugs away from our shores. What should America do about failed states?
        To begin, the United States should pay closer attention to failed states. Thus far, Washington has concentrated on so-called “rogue” regimes, such as North Korea, Iran and Iraq under Saddam Hussein. No one is arguing that the United States should stop paying attention to such states. However, if our policy makers are concerned about the problems failed states pose, Washington should designate someone at a very high level to be responsible for policy toward failed countries. In any organization, an objective is attained only when someone is made responsible for achieving it. If everyone agrees “we must do something about that,” but nobody is assigned that responsibility, chances are the objective will be ignored. It is proposed here that a new post be created whose occupant will have primary responsibility for developing and overseeing policy toward failed states. This post should be either at the level of the National Security Council or a new assistant secretary of state for failed states. Naturally, the incumbent of this office would require a staff. Since the problems caused by failed states cut across the responsibilities of several government agencies, it would make sense to set up an inter-agency task force to deal with failed states. The new official in charge of failed states would be the natural choice to head the task force, which could be modeled on the inter-agency counter-terrorism center or the nonproliferation center. At the outset, members would be drawn from the departments of state, defense, homeland security, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the Drug Enforcement Agency. Other departments and agencies could be asked to send representatives as the need arose.
        There is no reason why the United States should not seek the assistance of other countries in dealing with failed states. A useful first step might be to raise the consciousness abroad of the significance of failed states. Cooperation would be enhanced if other governments appointed officials with special responsibility for dealing with failed regimes.
        It was noted earlier that poverty is a common factor where failed states are found. Overcoming poverty is no guarantee that a failed state will move out of that status. However, the fact that no prosperous country is experiencing state failure suggests that economic development is an effective tool to eradicate this malady. One should not place too much hope in this remedy, however, especially in the short run. In most cases, palpable economic development will depend upon a massive increase in foreign aid. There is no sign that the wealthier countries are enthusiastic about boosting their aid contributions. Furthermore, economic development is a task for the marathon runner, not the short-distance sprinter. For over half a century, donors—mostly the industrialized democracies—have contributed to foreign aid. While there have been some notable successes, the number of poor countries remains depressingly high. Sadly, it is likely to remain so for decades to come. In the meanwhile, we must take other actions to counter the threats failed states present.
        One such action could be military intervention. This option presents some extremely difficult questions involving international law and sovereignty. According to international law, no state has the right to commit aggression against another state. This principle is enshrined the Charter of the United Nations. Sovereignty and the rights of sovereign states also militate against military invasion. According to these principles, a state may do whatever it wants, so long as those actions do not harm other states. In other words, one state cannot attack another simply because the first state disapproves of strictly internal developments in another country. Such a rule makes much sense and contributes to international harmony. In the absence of such a dictum, countries would have every right to intervene in America because they disapprove of certain domestic practices. Radical left-wing aggressors might justify their assaults on the ground that capitalism (in their view) victimizes working people and leaves too many people without basic rights, such as shelter and health care and jobs. Religious extremists might justify such actions on the ground that freedom of religion allows people to worship false gods. Virtually every country allows—or cannot prevent—some practices that other states might condemn. If countries had the right to intervene to eradicate such behavior, ceaseless warfare might engulf the planet. Thus the time-honored principle of sovereignty came into being.
        In recent years, however, sovereignty itself has come under assault from advocates of humanitarian intervention. Such advocates ask whether the world behaved properly in ignoring the Holocaust, because the “final solution” did not harm other states. Sectarian violence in Rwanda resulted in the death of at least 800,000 people. Should the world have stood by simply because the slaughter did not affect other states? Champions of humanitarian intervention maintain that a government yields it right to sovereign protection when it allows—or causes—widespread suffering. Others justify intervention when a government takes actions that have the potential of causing harm to other states. Former National Security Council official Richard Haass puts it this way. “Sovereignty is conditional, even contractual, rather than absolute. If a state sponsors terrorism, develops weapons of mass destruction, or conducts genocide, then it forfeits the normal benefits of sovereignty and opens itself up to attack, removal, or occupation.” (Haass, p. 54) Such reasoning led to NATO’s decisions to insert a peacekeeping force amidst the warring parties in Yugoslavia and to bomb Serbians into agreement to stop the killing in Kosovo.
        With sovereignty itself under assault, might not the United States, with or without the assistance of other countries, intervene in failed states under what might be called “presumptive self-defense?” It goes without saying that states have the right to defend themselves, with force if necessary. But what behavior warrants defensive measures? An analogy might shed some illumination upon this conundrum. Suppose that a policeman is chasing a suspected criminal down a dark alley. The alleged perpetrator stops running, spins around, and reaches into her pocket. The policeman fears she is withdrawing a gun; is he justified in shooting her before she shoots him? Must he wait until he actually sees a gun? Must he wait until she actually points the gun at him? Until she fires? Of course, the woman could have nothing at all in her pocket, or she could pull out a cell phone, which in the dark might look like a gun from a distance.
        Similar problems arise in the state system. Was Israel justified in attacking Egypt and Jordan and Syria in 1967, before those countries sent their mobilized troops across the border? Was the United States justified in striking Iraq in 2003, in the belief that the country had WMD, even if there was no indication Iraq was about to launch these weapons? (As we now know, Iraq had no WMD.)
        Under the doctrine of presumptive self-defense, a country would be justified in using force against a failed state if it believed the terrorists, religious extremists, drug syndicates or other groups camped therein presented a threat to the attacking state. Under this notion of self-defense, must the threat to the attacker be immediate or could it lie in the future? (The analogy of the policeman and suspect comes to mind.)
        There is no simple answer to this dilemma. However, approval by the United Nations or some regional organization would at least lend a measureof objectivity and fairness to the decision to intervene. In the eyes of the world, such sanction would render the intervention more legitimate than if the attacking state(s) acted solely on their own. Of course, gaining such acceptance from a multinational body is never easy in our divided world.
        To be sure, intervention against a failed state is likely to give rise to substantial costs. Would the goal be to oust (kill? capture?) the offending group within the failed state or to replace the entire governmental structure, as the U.S. did in Afghanistan and Iraq? In either case, the U.S. would suffer casualties. There would be a considerable financial cost as well. As the situation in Yugoslavia illustrates, bringing an intervention to a conclusion represents a tremendous challenge. (Afghanistan and Iraq also exemplify this problem.) Failed states are extremely difficult to prop up. Simply removing the offendinggroup (terrorists, for instance) might provide only temporary relief, like cleaning out a litter box while the cat watches from a safe distance. Yet going beyond such a limited step would invite the monumental problems of nation-building we see today in Afghanistan and Iraq.
        Should the United States, under the doctrine of presumptive self-defense, intervene without the blessing of an international authority, it would likely incur the wrath of many states that would accuse America of bullying. Should the object of America’s assault lie in the Middle East, Washington would no doubt suffer the wrath of many of the world’s one billion Muslims. This additional cost of intervening would present Washington with a delicate balancing of priorities.
Conclusions
        The author of this paper has sought to define a new type of threat to the United States (and other countries). This threat emanates from failed states, the very weakest countries in the state system. The threat arises from the inability of the governments of failed states to prevent the use of their countries by terrorists, WMD proliferators, religious extremists, drug cartels and other groups that routinely violate the norms of the state system (as defined largely by the West). All of these organizations represent threats to the well-being of American citizens.
        The paper has attempted to describe the nature of failed states and to identify some reasons why states fail. The paper also proposes that the U.S. government devote far more attention to failed states than it does at present. The most effective way to do this would be to create a new high-level office whose occupant would bear responsibility for formulating and carrying out policy toward failed states. The paper has also dealt with the issue of how the U.S. might act toward failed states, including the perplexing question of whether to intervene with military force.

Mel Gurtov, Superpower on Crusade, Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2006.
Richard N. Haass, “Sovereignty,” Foreign Policy, September/October 2005, p. 54.
Brigitte L. Nacos, Terrorism and Counterterrorism. New York: Pearson, 2006.
“The Failed States Index,” Foreign Policy, July/August 2005, pp. 56–65.
The New York Times, January 22, 2006, p. 1.