FP e-Alert: Countries on the Brink of Collapse

Inside this e-Alert: The Failed States Index: Who’s on the Brink of Collapse?

George W. Bush, Jacques Chirac, and Kofi Annan at least agree on this: Too many countries are struggling to govern themselves. Around 2 billion people live in countries in danger of collapse, and world leaders once concerned about who was amassing power are now anxious about its absence. How do you know a failed state when you see one? And what causes state failure anyway? FP takes a look at countries at risk.

THE FAILED STATES INDEX
By FOREIGN POLICY & the Fund for Peace
It can be hard to tell how close a country is to the edge. In some countries, an authoritarian government might appear to be in control, but beneath the surface all the ingredients for an eruption are brewing. That’s where the first annual Failed States Index comes in. FP and the Fund for Peace have ranked 60 countries in danger and examined the international community’s response.

THE MUSLIM FACE OF AIDS

By Laura M. Kelley and Nicholas Eberstadt
Few things harm a nation’s viability more than an ill and depleted work force. Yet elites in Muslim countries have looked the other way as HIV has crept into their societies, which are situated in some of the most volatile parts of the world. Muslim leaders must address the threat now—or risk a future crisis.

SEEING GREEN IN AFRICA
By Carolyn O’Hara
For years, Western countries have tried using development aid and debt relief to lift failing African countries out of poverty and disease. But while rich-country leaders look to heal Africa with generosity, China and India may help pull Africa out of poverty with trade and investment driven by good, old-fashioned greed.

THE STATE OF NATURE

An FP Debate: Carl Pope vs. Bjørn Lomborg
When Carl Pope looks out his door, he sees the polar ice caps melting, ecosystems on life support, and clean water disappearing. But Bjørn Lomborg believes humanity’s backyard “has never looked better.” Which one of these environmentalists has got it right? For young and old, rich and poor, the answer might just mean the world.

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THE ETHICS OF EXIT

If things get worse, Iraq could end up being the mother of all failed states. What do the United States and its allies owe Iraq, and when should their forces leave? In this FP Roundtable, five experts examine what it will take for the United States to bid Iraq a proper farewell.

Avoiding Betrayal by Lawrence Kaplan
Get out Now by George A. Lopez
A Job Half Done by Kenneth R. Himes
Tightly Tied to the New Iraq by Jean Bethke Elshtain
An Islamic Solution by Sohail H. Hashmi

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ANALYSIS and RESOURCES on the World Wide Web

States at Risk and Failed States: Putting Security First
Policy Outlook, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace 2004
By Marina Ottaway and Stefan Mair
Two experts argue that the ambitious models for intervention that are often advocated—emphasizing human over state security—are too complex, costly, and often divorced from realistic assessments of what can be accomplished.

Nation Building: UN Surpasses U.S. on Learning Curve
Rand Review, Spring 2005
By James Dobbins
Even though U.N. operations have almost always been understaffed and underresourced, they have often worked. In Afghanistan and Iraq, the United States adopted a “light footprint” approach that has yet to yield satisfactory results. The United States would be well advised to super-size its nation-building missions and to leave the small-footprint approach to the United Nations.

Commission on Weak States and U.S. National Security
Sponsored by the Center for Global Development
The challenge, according to this commission of high-level policy minds, is not merely to predict which states pose the most threat but to strengthen the institutions of governance in low-income countries more broadly and to offer every state the tools to improve its institutions.