What to do with the 28 failed states

The Belmont Club:

... For two successive years (2005, 2006) Foreign Policy has listed the 'most failed' states based on twelve indicators which attempt to measure the degree to which each has broken down....

...

One problem with the Foreign Policy list of failing states is that it does not factor the geopolitical significance of each state -- from the perspective of the West -- into its rankings. If it did then the failed states of greatest concern would be those which intersect the axis of the Global War on Terror (Sudan, Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan etc); involve nuclear weapons (Pakistan, North Korea) or are geographically close to the major Western countries (East Timor [unrated], Solomons [unrated], Indonesia [32] for Australia; Mexico [85] and Cuba [62] for the US). If the Failed State problem were viewed less as a humanitarian challenge and more as gigantic politico-military problem then they would be less a fit subject for aid agencies and more the stuff of serious diplomatic and military strategy. But it will be difficult to persuade diplomats and soldiers to acknowledge that it falls within their competence. Diplomats are used to dealing with governments; not the absence of functioning governments. Soldiers are accustomed to defeating rival armies; not facing armed chaos. Diplomats don't do tribal conflicts and armies have no manual for dealing with swarms of kidnappers. Failing states constitute a problem for which the West has not yet evolved an appropriate organizational response.

...
One of the reasons the mission to Somalia was a failure was it was viewed as a humanitarian crisis instead of what it was. The humanitarian situation in Somalia was a deliberate policy of the factions at war in that country and intervening to provide humaitarian assistance was in effect an intervention that thwarted a war policy of the combatrants. That is why those providing aid were attacked. That is why any intervention in Darfur must be one where the warring factions are faced with destruction at the same time the assistance is provided. In fact the best humanitarian assistance can be the destruction of the warring parties.

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