Sanctuary or Ungoverned Spaces:identification, symptoms and responses

[Jedburgh]

Wow, counter-terrorism activities are so far away from the World Bank's responsibilities that this is ridiculous.

The book, and this thread in general, is looking at the issue of failed/fragile states as a strategic enabling factor in the growth and spread of organized violence. It was never intended to take a narrow CT view.

The World Bank, despite its being a massive international bureaucracy - with all the problems inherent in that descriptor - at least recognizes the need to bridge the security-development divide. With the establishment of its Fragile and Conflict-Affected Countries Group last year, it adjusted its structure and made an operational commitment to an attempt to more effectively address what it understood conceptually.

Ridiculous? No. Difficult, complex and destined to make plenty of mistakes along the way? Yes.

[Jedburgh]

Foreign Policy, Jul-Aug 08: Failed States Index 2008

Whether it is an unexpected food crisis or a devastating hurricane, the world’s weakest states are the most exposed when crisis strikes. In the fourth annual Failed States Index, FOREIGN POLICY and The Fund for Peace rank the countries where state collapse may be just one disaster away.....

[Jedburgh]

Berghof Research Center, 9 Apr 09:

Building Peace in the Absence of States: Challenging the Discourse on State Failure

....This Berghof Handbook Dialogue will not present an additional compilation of definitions and/or theoretical approaches concerning failed, fragile or weak states, nor will it offer recipes or policy recommendations in a technical sense. Our intention is instead to present some food for thought on the general premises of these concepts and to point out dilemmas which mark the current discourse (and practice). The lead article asks poignantly whether it is the states (in the South) that are failing, or the analysis of research (undertaken mostly in the North) that is inadequate or incomplete. Given a situation where state-building efforts are more often than not designed by the North and introduced to the South, this question needs to be investigated. This implies critically and honestly identifying the potential, and limits, of external intervention....

Complete 98-page paper at the link.

[Mack]

Great discussion.

Berghof Research Center, 9 Apr 09:

Building Peace in the Absence of States: Challenging the Discourse on State Failure

Complete 98-page paper at the link.

Jedburgh,

Those are some really good articles on this topic and I wish it was required reading for Political Science 101.

I was going through my notes on the Berghof papers and came across this quote from "On Hybrid Political Orders and Emerging States: What is Failing – States in the Global South or Research and Politics in the West?" by Volker Boege, Anne Brown, Kevin Clements and Anna Nolan (p. 15- p. 37):

"However, as Morten Boas and Kathleen Jennings (2005, 388) point out: 'To say that something ‘fails’ or ‘is failing’ is a normative judgement that is only meaningful in comparison to something else; in this case, that something else is the existence of a westernised, ‘healthy’ state that, unfortunately, has little relevance to most of the states in question because it has simply never existed there.' Promoting the liberal state as the ultimate model is to ignore the historical context, and with it the fact of the rather recent historical emergence of the modern state (p. 18)."

I think that this quote highlights the sentiment in this thread.

In terms of security, I guess as long as territory 'X' has its own effective system to deal with "undesirables" (terrorists, drug traffickers, insurgents, etc.), and does not harbour individuals who pose a threat to national security, territory 'X' can be governed through a variety of ways (e.g. tribal structures, "hybrid states", and other informal/non-state forms of governance).

[Jedburgh]

28 May 10: An Operational Definition of "Failed States"

This In Brief aims to contribute to the operationalisation of the concept of ‘fragile states’ for use in development policy. Following a review of different definitions of ‘fragile states’, it proposes a three-pronged definition of fragility that broadly encompasses other classifications. Fragile states are defined as states that are failing, or in danger of failing, with respect to authority, comprehensive socioeconomic entitlements or governance legitimacy. We show that many states are fragile along one or two dimensions, but rather few are fragile along all three, despite causal connections among them—a lack of comprehensive data in the most fragile countries may partly account for this. A consideration of how fragility, as defined, relates to some other significant development approaches to vulnerable societies indicates that fragility in its various dimensions corresponds most closely to failures on particular Human Rights. Yet, the Human Rights approach applies to all countries and embodies a particular way of approaching development, whereas ‘fragile’ states form a specific subset of especially vulnerable countries and the concept as such does not imply a distinct approach to aid and development.

[davidbfpo]

This thread was titled 'Ungoverned spaces & State, Non-State, State Sponsored opportunities vs. our Interests' and features a wide debate on a key issue in Small Wars / irregular warfare / insurgency the use of safe havens or sanctuaries / sanctuary.

In the OEF-Afghanistan forum are two threads that cover the issues: Stand back from doing "something" about sanctuaries? - which covers more than Afghanistan (and the cross-border question into Pakistan) and 'Sanctuary (or perhaps just area) denial operations at the Afghanistan village level' which on inspection appears specifically Afghanistan-related.

There's 'History Lesson: CSI OP#17 Out of Bounds, Transnational Sanctuary in Irregular Warfare', from 2008, which will be merged to here.

'What is a Guerilla's Center of Gravity?' touches upon sanctuaries, but is about a guerilla's COG and has been left alone.

Posts 302-312 have been copied from the 'Green on Blue' thread and then edited for the purposes of this thread - removing Afghan specific lines.

[slapout9]

'What is a Guerilla's Center of Gravity?'

David is this a report? I can't seeem to find it