Strengthening Constitutional Self-Government

No Left Turns

Failed states in the world

This is brutal, if unsurprising, news:

How many states are at serious risk of state failure? The World Bank has identified about 30 “low-income countries under stress,” whereas Britain’s Department for International Development has named 46 “fragile” states of concern. A report commissioned by the CIA has put the number of failing states at about 20.

To present a more precise picture of the scope and implications of the problem, the Fund for Peace, an independent research organization, and FOREIGN POLICY have conducted a global ranking of weak and failing states. Using 12 social, economic, political, and military indicators, we ranked 60 states in order of their vulnerability to violent internal conflict....About 2 billion people live in insecure states, with varying degrees of vulnerability to widespread civil conflict.

The 10 most at-risk countries in the index have already shown clear signs of state failure. Ivory Coast, a country cut in half by civil war, is the most vulnerable to disintegration; it would probably collapse completely if U.N. peacekeeping forces pulled out. It is followed by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, Iraq, Somalia, Sierra Leone, Chad, Yemen, Liberia, and Haiti.

Discussions - 1 Comment

Perhaps it should be a sign to us of what area of the world our foreign policy should focus on, given that eight of those 10 countries are in Africa -- a continent we largely ignore.

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