With the United States' attention still focused on a rabid debate over how to win in Iraq, it seems far too defeatist to call Iraq a "failed state." However, the U.S.-based Fund for Peace is doing just that.
Every year, the Fund for Peace ranks countries on an index based on factors such as movement of refugees and increasing domestic pressures. A failed state is generally thought to be a state in which the government can no longer perform basic functions, such as providing security. According to German thinker Max Weber, a state fails when the government no longer has a "monopoly on the legitimate use of force" within its given territory. If warlords or militias are using force to garner political power, then the Weberian concept of state has been violated.
Ranked fourth by the Failed States Index in 2006, Iraq has a long road ahead as it works to establish rule of law and functioning institutions. However, the international community should not just be apprehensive about Iraq's domestic challenges; it should also be troubled by the international and regional ramifications of state failure in Iraq. Sebastian von Einsiedel, who previously worked for the United Nations, explicitly states that "a failing or failed state is arguably as dangerous to its citizens and neighbors as a tyrannical or aggressive state."
As the domestic situation in Iraq worsens, border disputes and domestic concerns in surrounding countries will become more pervasive. The involvement of neighboring states in the failing state becomes worrisome, as those countries seek to promote and strengthen their own agenda in an already weakened country. In this vein, the U.S. government is currently absorbed by the fear that the Iranian military and religious leaders, if not government, are supporting militias and spreading their influence in Iraq.
Iraq is not the only failed state, and more importantly, not the only one with which the international community should be concerned; at the top of the 2006 Failed States Index are Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, C??te d'Ivoire and Afghanistan. As with Iraq, each failed state has unique international and regional implications, as well as domestic challenges. For example, in C??te d'Ivoire, domestic fighting between the government, rebels and different ethnic groups has led to increased tensions with Mali, Burkina Faso and Liberia.
Failed states have been at the center of the United States' key security concerns for the country. This much is stated clearly in the National Security Strategy. Although the Bush administration has done well to recognize them as safe havens for terrorists, the focus of U.S. foreign policy in recent years has been to remove aggressive and oppressive governments such as the Taliban in Afghanistan or Saddam Hussein's Baath regime in Iraq. Yet even with the removal of such leaders, much of the world remains unstable.
Much of this remaining insecurity, I believe, can be attributed to von Einsiedel's theory that a failed state is just as destabilizing as an aggressive state. U.S. foreign policy should not assume that once an aggressive leader is removed, the international community will automatically be positively affected.
One way to reduce the international community's unease and improve regional stability is to understand the implications of a failed state on an international scale. It is important to tie what happens in Somalia or Sudan to the greater condition of the world as a whole - the mass displacement of people to other countries, falling economic productivity, etc. In addition, more emphasis needs to be put on rebuilding state institutions over a long-term period, rather then just responding to each individual crisis in a failing state in the short term.
It is important to see that in failing states, many of the problems overlap and are the result of very broad failures by the national government as well as the international community. For example, the failure of the United States and the international community to get the promised monies to Afghanistan for rebuilding have severely hampered Afghanistan's ability to continue the process of rebuilding and providing necessary amenities to the people. The Afghan citizens in turn lose faith in their government and turn to local warlords to provide for them.
Issues cannot be framed simply between aggressive and peaceful states, but rather through the lens of functioning and non-functioning states. Policy interventions for failing states are hard to determine and largely depend on a case-by-case basis. Generally, it is crucial to set up a strong and purposeful central government and a functioning civil society. This both establishes rule of law and allows citizens to retain a sense of ownership over their state institutions.
The balance is hard to maintain, but the vast human and economic resources available throughout the world should look at rebuilding failed states as an important investment in the collective future of the world.
-Alex Blackman is a freshman majoring in international relations. She is a member of EPIIC, which will cover state failure at its upcoming symposium, Global Crises: Governance and Intervention, on March 1-4.
