Anarchy and Failed States

1. Anarchy and Failed States Lsn 23

2. The Problem • Since the end of the Cold War, many observers consider weak or failing states to be the most important problem for international order • Human rights abuses, humanitarian disasters, immigration, regional violence, shelter for international terrorists

3. The Problem • Between the fall of the Berlin Wall and September 11, 2001, the vast majority of international crises centered around weak or failing states • Somalia, Haiti, Cambodia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Rwanda, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Congo, East Timor • International community interventions in these locations was often too late and with inadequate resources • Still the IC often ended up literally taking over the governance function from local actors • Got stuck with the problem of how to externally stimulate state-building in countries with severe internal dysfunction

4. The Problem • One thing that complicates the problem for the IC is that the traditional Westphalian system grants a nation-state sovereignty over its internal affairs • Now, however, mismanagement of those internal affairs increasingly affects members of the international system • Unfortunately, the rules for who can and when it is right or legitimate to intervene in a state’s internal affairs are cloudy at best

5. “Weak” Governance • State lacks the institutional capacity to implement and enforce policies • Often driven by an underlying lack of legitimacy of the political system as a whole (authoritarian dictatorship, nepotism, lack of transparency, corrupt judicial system, human rights abuses, etc) • The ensuing problems increase the likelihood that someone else in the international system will seek to intervene in the state’s affairs against their wishes to forcibly fix the problem

6. Weak States • In 1946 Max Weber famously defined the state as “a human community that claims the monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force within a given territory” • “The government of Sierra Leone has no writ after dark.” • Foreign resident in Sierra Leone circa 1994 • “Once the legal monopoly of armed force, long claimed by the state, is wrested out of its hands, existing distinctions between war and crime will break down much as is already the case today in… Lebanon, Sri Lanka, El Salvador, Peru, or Colombia.” • Martin Van Creveld, The Transformation of War, 1991

7. Failed States • “Lack of state capacity in poor countries has come to haunt the developed world much more directly….. Suddenly the ability to shore up or to create from whole cloth missing state capabilities and institutions has risen to the top of the global agenda and seems likely to be a major condition for security in important parts of the world. Thus state weakness is both a national and an international issue of the first order.” • Francis Fukuyama, State-Building, x-xi

8. Indicators of Failing States • Economic • Political • Level of violence

9. Indicators of Failing States • Economic downward spiral • However corrupt leadership is insulated from its effects so there is little governmental incentive to help correct the problem • Fragile population becomes increasingly at risk as foreign investment jobs, etc dry up • Situation is exacerbated where there are environmental problems such as drought • As resources diminish, corrupt rulers systematically skim the state treasury, engage in black marketeering, etc to continue to get their share

10. Indicators of Failing States • Political • Leaders subvert democratic norms, thereby reducing participation • Political goods increasingly are reserved only for the leading class • Rulers demonstrate increasing contempt for the population and increasingly align themselves with family, clan, or ethnic partners • The state becomes synonymous with the leader and leaders increasingly flaunt their power with large motorcades, oversize self-portraits, etc

11. Indicators of Failing States • Levels of violence • As the economy crumbles, crime increases • As the political apparatus becomes more authoritarian, the likelihood of civil war increases • The vulnerable portions of the population (weak, old, minorities, women, etc) are increasingly victimized • The state loses its monopoly on violence • Anarchy follows

12. Case Study Sudan

13. Sudan • In Southern Sudan, a civil war has raged for all but eleven years since the country gained its independence from Britain in 1956 • The fighting is between the northern, Arab-dominated government and Christian and animist black southerners • Over 2 million lives have been lost since 1983

14. Sudan • Recently the government and the main southern rebel movement have entered into negotiations called the Intergovernmental Authority on Development (IDAD) and many thought an agreement was near being reached in 2004 • However, Darfur, a region roughly the size of Texas in western Sudan, was never represented in the IDAD discussions • Darfur rebels attacked, in part to avoid being left out of any new political agreement

15. Sudan • The rebel groups in Darfur are the Sudan Liberation Army and the Justice and Equality Movement • They are fighting against the Islamist, Khartoum-based national government in protest against what they feel is political and economic marginalization • Since 2003 more than 70,000 civilians have been killed and 1.8 million displaced

16. Sudan • The main civilian victims are black “Africans” from three tribes which led the US Congress to label Darfur a genocide in 2004 • The instigators are “Arabs” • Secretary of State Colin Powell and President Bush have also used the term genocide to describe Darfur • Still international response has been weak

17. Sudan • Although Darfurians are Muslim and years of intermarriage have reduced obvious physical differences between the “Arabs” and “Africans,” the animosity is still there • In the mid-1980s the Khartoum government began arming Arab tribes who then formed militias and burned African villages • The Africans in turn formed self-defense groups which by 2003 had begun to serve as insurgents

18. Sudan • In 2003 the government instructed the militias to “eliminate the rebellion” • “Janjaweed” which roughly translates as “evil men on horseback” and often were convicted felons initiated what grew into a campaign of violence against black African civilians • The janjaweed especially victimize the women through rape and sexual exploitation

19. Sudan • In 2008, International Criminal Court indicted Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir of crimes against humanity and genocide • Al-Bashir came to power in an Islamist-backed coup in 1989 and imposed the sharia and a series of emergency laws that dissolved political parties and trade unions

20. Sudan • Environmental issues • Inadequate supplies of potable water • Wildlife populations threatened by excessive hunting • Soil erosion • Desertification • Periodic drought

21. Sudan • In The US labeled Sudan a “state sponsor of terrorism” • The US has accused Sudan of harboring members of al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and other terrorist organizations • al-Qaeda operatives based in Sudan were involved in the bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 • The US responded with cruise missile strikes on targets in Sudan and Afghanistan

22. Nation-building • “The use of armed force in the aftermath of a crisis to promote a transition to democracy”

23. Three Aspects or Phasesof Nation-building • Post-conflict reconstruction • Applies to countries emerging from violent conflict where state authority has collapsed completely and needs to be rebuilt from the ground up • Afghanistan, Somalia, Kosovo • Outside powers must provide short-term stability through infusions of security forces, police, humanitarian relief, and technical assistance to restore electricity, water, banking, payment systems, etc

24. Three Aspects or Phasesof Nation-building (cont) • Building on a modicum of stability that was achieved with international help • Bosnia • Outside powers must create self-sustaining state institutions that can survive the withdrawal of outside intervention • Much more difficult to achieve than the first phase

25. Three Aspects or Phasesof Nation-building (cont) • Strengthening weak states where state authority exists in a reasonably stable form but cannot accomplish certain necessary state functions • Some states in this category have specific problem areas such as education or rule of law in Peru and Mexico • Others have weak institutions across the board like Ghana and Kenya

26. Nation-building • Institutions • “the rules of the game in a society, or, more formally, the humanly devised constraints that shape human interaction” (Douglass North) • Property rights • Rule of law • Constitutions • Protection of the rights of investors and entrepreneurs • Voting procedures

27. Case Study Iraq

28. Iraqi Benchmarks • The U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans’ Care, Katrina Recovery, and Iraq Accountability Appropriations Act, 2007 (Public Law 110-28) states that the President is to submit to Congress two reports assessing the status of each of the 18 benchmarks contained in the Act and declaring whether, in the President’s judgment, satisfactory progress is being achieved with respect to those 18 benchmarks.

29. Iraqi Benchmarks • Forming a Constitutional Review Committee and then completing the constitutional review. • Enacting and implementing legislation on de-Ba’athification reform. • Enacting and implementing legislation to ensure the equitable distribution of hydrocarbon resources to the people of Iraq without regard to the sect or ethnicity of recipients, and enacting and implementing legislation to ensure that the energy resources of Iraq benefit Sunni Arabs, Shi’a Arabs, Kurds, and other Iraqi citizens in an equitable manner.

30. Iraqi Benchmarks • Enacting and implementing legislation on procedures to form semi-autonomous regions. • Enacting and implementing legislation establishing an Independent High Electoral Commission, provincial elections law, provincial council authorities, and a date for provincial elections. • Enacting and implementing legislation addressing amnesty.

31. Iraqi Benchmarks • Enacting and implementing legislation establishing a strong militia disarmament program to ensure that such security forces are accountable only to the central government and loyal to the constitution of Iraq. • Establishing supporting political, media, economic, and services committees in support of the Baghdad Security Plan. • Providing three trained and ready Iraqi brigades to support Baghdad operations.

32. Iraqi Benchmarks • Providing Iraqi commanders with all authorities to execute this plan and to make tactical and operational decisions in consultation with U.S. Commanders without political intervention to include the authority to pursue all extremists including Sunni insurgents and Shiite militias. • Ensuring that Iraqi Security Forces are providing even-handed enforcement of the law. • Ensuring that, as Prime Minister Maliki was quoted by President Bush as saying, “the Baghdad Security Plan will not provide a safe haven for any outlaws, regardless of [their] sectarian or political affiliation.”

33. Iraqi Benchmarks • Reducing the level of sectarian violence in Iraq and eliminating militia control of local security. • Establishing all of the planned joint security stations in neighborhoods across Baghdad. • Increasing the number of Iraqi security forces units capable of operating independently. • Ensuring that the rights of minority political parties in the Iraqi legislature are protected.

34. Practical Exercise • As China seeks to meet its growing demand for oil, one expert explains, “Chinese companies must go places for oil where American [and] European companies are not present. Sudan represents this strategy put into practice.” • Sudan is China’s biggest oil project • China National Petroleum Corp. owns 40 %-- the largest single share -- of the Greater Nile Petroleum Operating Co., a consortium that dominates Sudan’s oil fields in partnership with the national energy company and firms from Malaysia and India.

35. Practical Exercise • China has used its seat on the United Nations Security Council to become Sudan’s chief diplomatic ally. • China is probably Sudan’s largest supplier of arms • In 2005 the UN began a 10,000-man peacekeeping mission in Sudan • China contributes about 450 soldiers

36. Practical Exercise • Assume Omar al-Bashir is removed as president of Sudan based on his genocide charges and the UN installs an interim transitional government • Devise the benchmarks for a nation-building strategy for Sudan that reflects Chinese national interests