Fixing failed states: a cure worse than the
disease?
by Logan, Justin^Preble, Christopher
The last time the world saw such a group of people, they wore pith
helmets and jodhpurs. They left in their wake impoverished and
politically infantilized states that hardly possessed any capacity for
governing. It would be tragic and counterproductive for the United
States to embrace such a role in the world, and a fair-minded assessment
of the dubious benefits and enormous costs of such a policy would
preclude even considering it.
JUSTIN LOGAN is associate director and CHRISTOPHER PREBLE is
director of foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute. They are the
authors of the policy study "Failed States and Flawed Logic: The
Case against a Standing Nation-Building Office."
RELATED ARTICLE: COSTLY CURES
Incremental costs of US military interventions, 1991-2004
Major Stabilization
Combat and
Operation Operations* Peacekeeping* Notes
Persian Gulf 6.4 16.2 Total cost of invasion
War $84 billion, with
$6.4 billion from US
taxpayers
Bosnia 1.0 15.0 Major Combat
Operations (MCO) from 1992
to 1995
Kosovo 4.5 5.9 Air war $2.1 billion
Afghanistan 7.9 34.9 MCO September 2001 to March
2002
*Costs are given in billions USD adjusted for the 2004 fiscal year.
Defense Science Board, US Department of Defense
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