No impact to failed states

The message is clear: Failed states are the weak link in the world’s collective security. In truth, while failed states may be worthy of America’s attention on humanitarian and development grounds, most of them are irrelevant to U.S. national security. The risks they pose are mainly to their own inhabitants. Sweeping claims to the contrary are not only inaccurate but distracting and unhelpful, providing little guidance to policymakers seeking to prioritize scarce attention and resources. In 2008, I collaborated with Brookings Institution senior fellow Susan E. Rice, now President Obama’s permanent representative to the United Nations, on an index of state weakness in developing countries.The study ranked all 141 developing nations on 20 indicators of state strength, such as the government’s ability to provide basic services. More recently, I’ve examined whether these rankings reveal anything about each nation’s role in major global threats: transnational terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, international crime and infectious disease. The findings are startlingly clear. Only a handful of the world’s failed states pose security concerns to the United States. Far greater dangers emerge from stronger developing countries that may suffer from corruption and lack of government accountability but come nowhere near qualifying as failed states. The link between failed states and transnational terrorism, for instance, is tenuous. Al-Qaeda franchises are concentrated in South Asia, North Africa, the Middle East and Southeast Asia but are markedly absent in most failed states, including in sub-Saharan Africa. Why? From a terrorist’s perspective, the notion of finding haven in a failed state is an oxymoron. Al-Qaeda discovered this in the 1990s when seeking a foothold in anarchic Somalia. In intercepted cables, operatives bemoaned the insuperable difficulties of working under chaos, given their need for security and for access to the global financial and communications infrastructure. Al-Qaeda has generally found it easier to maneuver in corrupt but functional states, such as Kenya, where sovereignty provides some protection from outside interdiction. Pakistan and Yemen became sanctuaries for terrorism not only because they are weak but because their governments lack the will to launch sustained counterterrorism operations against militants whom they value for other purposes. Terrorists also need support from local power brokers and populations. Along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, al-Qaeda finds succor in the Pashtun code of pashtunwali, which requires hospitality to strangers, and in the severe brand of Sunni Islam practiced locally. Likewise in Yemen, al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula has found sympathetic tribal hosts who have long welcomed mujaheddin back from jihadist struggles. Al-Qaeda has met less success in northern Africa’s Sahel region, where a moderate, Sufi version of Islam dominates. But as the organization evolves from a centrally directed network to a diffuse movement with autonomous cells in dozens of countries, it is as likely to find haven in the banlieues of Paris or high-rises of Minneapolis as in remote Pakistani valleys. What about failed states and weapons of mass destruction? Many U.S. analysts worry that poorly governed countries will pursue nuclear, biological, chemical or radiological weapons; be unable to control existing weapons; or decide to share WMD materials. These fears are misplaced. With two notable exceptions — North Korea and Pakistan — the world’s weakest states pose minimal proliferation risks, since they have limited stocks of fissile or other WMD material and are unlikely to pursue them. Far more threatening are capable countries (say, Iran and Syria) intent on pursuing WMD, corrupt nations (such as Russia) that possess loosely secured nuclear arsenals and poorly policed nations (try Georgia) through which proliferators can smuggle illicit materials or weapons. When it comes to crime, the story is more complex. Failed states do dominate production of some narcotics: Afghanistan cultivates the lion’s share of global opium, and war-tornColombia rules coca production. The tiny African failed state of Guinea-Bissau has become a transshipment point for cocaine bound for Europe. (At one point, the contraband transiting through the country each month was equal to the nation’s gross domestic product.) And Somalia, of course, has seen an explosion ofmaritime piracy. Yet failed states have little or no connection with other categories of transnational crime, from human trafficking to money laundering, intellectual property theft, cyber-crime or counterfeiting of manufactured goods. Criminal networks typically prefer operating in functional countries that provide baseline political order as well as opportunities to corrupt authorities. They also accept higher risks to work in nations straddling major commercial routes. Thusnarco-trafficking has exploded in Mexico, which has far stronger institutions than many developing nations but borders the United States. South Africa presents its own advantages. It is a country where “the first and the developing worlds exist side by side,” author Misha Glenny writes. “The first world provides good roads, 728 airports . . . the largest cargo port in Africa, and an efficient banking system. . . . The developing world accounts for the low tax revenue, overstretched social services, high levels of corruption throughout the administration, and 7,600 kilometers of land and sea borders that have more holes than a second-hand dartboard.” Weak and failing African states, such as Niger, simply cannot compete.