…state failure and promote state stability.

Much has been written about fragile states and their dire consequences, but comparatively little on how to prevent state failure and promote state stability. The key question is: can we foster sustainable security so that fragile states can resolve their own problems peacefully, without an external military or administrative presence?

The short answer is “yes,” but with caveats. Sustainable security does not mean preserving “strongman states,” where stability lasts only as long as the leaders are in power. Predatory regimes were supported during the Cold War to gain ideological advantage, but by propping up authoritarian personalities in the 20th century, the superpowers helped establish conditions for the emergence of the fragile states of the 21st century. Promoting sustainable security also does not mean external military intervention to bring down rogue or unfriendly regimes. The overthrow of Saddam Hussein removed a brutal tyrant, but it also precipitated state collapse, insurgency, and civil war, the consequences of which are yet to be fully realized.

Military intervention may be necessary to save lives when mass atrocities are threatened. Without a forward-looking strategy, however, it risks leaving behind a political vacuum that will be filled by factional warlords, as occurred in Somalia, or a frozen conflict, as in Bosnia-Herzegovina, where hostilities ended on the battlefield, but did not dissipate in the hearts and minds of the ethnic rivals.

The Essence of State Building
The best way to promote sustainable stability is, first, to identify the risks of state failure through early warning in order to identify where international intervention might make a difference. Second, strategies must be developed to reduce the pressures on at-risk states, not only by addressing urgent problems but by building the long-term capacity of state institutions, particularly the “core five”—the police, military, civil service, judicial system, and leadership (executive and legislative branches). Other factors are also important, such as local government and a free media, but they are part of building the core five, which constitutes the immutable core of a state. These institutions must be representative, competent, and legitimate in the eyes of the people. Progress can be tracked by looking at how the state fulfills its functions: is it providing human security, producing adequate public services, protecting human rights, ensuring the rule of law, fighting corruption, reducing poverty, growing the economy, fostering the well-being of the population, enforcing physical control throughout the territory, and acting responsibly in the international arena?

State building involves complex tasks. Often, they are tedious endeavors involving the establishment of administrative practices, such as financial disclosure, a professional public service, merit-based appointments, tax and revenue collection, and government accountability. However, what appears to outsiders to be hum-drum bureaucratic reforms are often seen by local elites as direct challenges to their ability to accumulate illicit wealth, expand their power bases, and operate patronage systems that sustain them. State building often challenges entrenched power structures. Even standard functions, such as conducting a comprehensive census or holding a free and fair election, can become hot button issues because they determine wealth, status, and political control. Vested interests often distort or delay them, leaving the state without reliable data for development and without representatives to address societal grievances.

Successful Cases
Notwithstanding such difficulties, two countries successfully pulled themselves back from the brink through self-driven reforms: India and South Africa. In the 1970s, India was widely predicted to be facing a Malthusian future, with high population growth, poverty, cultural divisions, crime, corruption, and insufficient agricultural productivity to feed its people. Today, despite continuing poverty and deep social cleavages, India is the world’s largest democracy and one of the world’s fastest growing economies. Similarly, South Africa in the 1980s was a pariah state locked in intractable internal conflict. It, too, successfully turned things around through a negotiated power shift that averted state failure, military intervention, and mass atrocities.

These successful transitions show that fragile states are not destined to become failed states. Robust and sustained reforms with visionary leadership can lead to sustainable security. The international community can help in important ways. For example, scientific research helped create the Green Revolution that fed India’s masses, and diplomatic pressure was exerted to reverse some of that country’s most reviled programs, such as forced sterilization. Eight years after economic sanctions were enacted by the US Congress against South Africa, Nelson Mandela celebrated the end of apartheid along with an array of international antiapartheid groups that provided material and moral support.

The most difficult state-building enterprises are those that take place in the midst of insurgencies. A record number of international initiatives have been undertaken to stabilize such countries: NATO in Afghanistan, the African Union in Somalia, the European Union in Kosovo, the UN in numerous missions, stability operations by the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan, and internal counter-insurgency programs in countries such as Indonesia and Nigeria. The notion that state failure threatens global stability is widely accepted, and the international community is responding.

To ensure that the world becomes a safer place, we need to build “institutionally strong states” that are politically inclusive, functionally capable, and legally accountable. This cannot be done on the cheap or on the quick. However, with the appropriate resources, organization, and time, it is an attainable goal.