A new approach: the need to focus on failing states.

by Mair, Stefan

Harvard International Review • Wntr, 2008 • picking up the pieces: FAILED STATES

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, formerly known as Zaire, President Mobutu's inability to control the eastern territory invited Rwanda and Uganda to support a local warlord, Laurent Kabila. However, Kabila soon found himself repeating Mobutu's mistakes and was eventually ousted as well. These events culminated in what is called Africa's First World War: a multitude of rebel groups, ethnic militias, and armies of eight African countries enmeshed in a low-intensity war. Soon the war resulted in a de facto partition of the country into three parts: Rwanda-friendly forces controlled the east, Uganda-friendly forces had the northeast, and the regime, with the help of Angola and Zimbabwe, held the rest.

The regime in Kinshasa paid Zimbabwe with mining concessions in the South and tacitly allowed Angola to move its border posts forward to some diamond fields. Rwandan and Ugandan security forces engaged themselves in the exploitation of resources in the territories that they directly or indirectly controlled, so that the military occupation of parts of the neighboring countries financed itself. Years after a peace settlement had been concluded and foreign forces were officially withdrawn, Rwanda and Uganda still exert control over resources in Kivu and Ituri.

The collapse of Somalia had similarly destabilizing effects on the Horn of Africa region. On the one hand, Somali warlords and bandits extended their area of operation to the northeast of Kenya and to its capital of Nairobi. The influx of small arms from Somalia and of people capable and willing to use them extensively increased the threat of organized crime in Kenya.

In addition, Somali Islamists were involved in acts of international terrorism in Nairobi, Mombassa, and Dar es Salaam. The collapse of the Somali state and the proximity of some of the militias there to al Qaeda provided the Ethiopian government with good reason to send their troops beyond the border and equip their proxies with better arms. In doing so, the Ethiopians were certainly less concerned about the situation in Somalia than about the threat that Somali warlords would encourage their kinsmen in Ogaden to contribute to the creation of a Greater Somalia and hence to an expansion of the Somali war economy into Ethiopia.

As the examples of Liberia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Somalia show, failed states have the potential to become the nucleus of complex regional conflict theaters and cross-border war economies. Thus, the effects on regional security are tremendous, and if these effects consolidate, they might come to bear international security implications. War economies and the permanent threat or use of arbitrary brutal violence robs a society of economic perspectives, destroys social networks and control, and undermines both the civilized behavior and validity of societal norms. This might finally result in the formation of violence-prone communities. These groups see the cause of their misery less in local circumstances than in the exploitation of their resources by multinational companies and the Western world.

Such suspicions are actually quite widespread throughout the West, Central, and the Horn of African regions. In the DRC, the Rwandese army was seen as a proxy for US and British companies whose main task would be to organize the provision of essential resources, especially coltan, for the markets of the industrialized world. It is difficult to forecast the future of such constructions. It might well be that in the distant future, the focus of international terrorism will be less on Islamic fundamentalism and more on the perceived exploitation of impoverished and desperate societies by the West.

How to Deal with Failed States

The long-term consequences, rather than the immediate effects of failed states, make them threats to international security. In this sense, counteracting state failure and rebuilding failed states are important tasks for the international community. But this is easier said than done. Rebuilding states that have collapsed into mosaics of local authorities is extremely difficult, as the case of Somalia illustrates. The failure of efforts to rebuild the state from the top, through international intervention, suggests the need to support efforts that start at the bottom. A starting point is the creation, expansion, or integration of networks of local actors, without any preconceived plan to restore the state as it was in the past. Support for proto-state formations, such as the one that is emerging in Somaliland, can also be a way to restore security and order. From that point of view, a relatively functioning Somaliland is good enough and is probably easier to achieve than a restored Somalia.

A major problem that the international community faces in the attempt to deal with failed states is the choice of partners. Quite often, there are actors who seem to respect essential rules of civilized behavior, such as democratic non-governmental organizations or village elders. These actors, however, generally have very little access to means of coercion, and thus retain little power and effectiveness in the rough world of collapsed states. Yet the real power-holders, no matter how distasteful a bunch they might be, cannot be ignored, since they have the capacity to spoil any effort at reconstructing new viable political entities. Efforts to build the state from below, then, must deal with these non-civil forces. The options range from co-opting to controlling or fighting them. The choice of the adequate strategy depends on the character of the non-civil forces and the resources available for intervention.

If these non-civil forces are determined to resist any kind of foreign intervention, most industrialized countries might shy away from engaging themselves in such failed states--as they did in Somalia after the first attempt of humanitarian intervention ended in a disaster. The case of Afghanistan shows that even the investment of massive resources to re-stabilize and rebuild a failed state might not lead to optimal results if the resistance of armed groups cannot be overcome.

Rebuilding failed states, after all, is a fairly expensive and risky business. Considering that there are fewer failed states than failing states, and that failing states seem to be an immediate threat to international security while the main impact of failed states is on regional security, it might be more appropriate to concentrate scarce resources of development aid and military assistance on failing states. This allocation will reduce the degree of state failure in these countries and immunize them against the cross-border effects of failed states in the neighborhood.

STEFAN MAIR is Director of Studies at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP).