Security Expert says New US Administration must Develop Fragile States - PART 2 of 5 | Voice of America - English
According to international security experts, the new president of the United States can?t afford to ignore events in so-called fragile states. They?re convinced that occurrences in developing countries with poor governance will in the near future increasingly bear upon the lives of Americans. But the analysts say in recent years, the US has struggled to implement strategies to help improve conditions in these 50 or so weak states, most of which are in Africa.
Stewart Patrick is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, andthe director of the organization?s program on Institutions and GlobalGovernance. ?A fragile state is one that cannot meet the functionsthat one associates with state sovereignty,? he says. During his time as a fellow at one of the US?s leadingthink tanks, the Center for Global Development in Washington, D.C., Patrickconducted extensive research into failed and failing states. According to him,these countries can be so defined because they can?t provide ?basic physicalsecurity? to their citizens, and ?can?t control the territory of the state.?They also fail to provide ?basic social welfare? and ?access to food and basicservices? such as health to inhabitants. The weak states, says Patrick, fail tomanage their economies ?in a way that?s conducive to the growth of the privatesector?. The final component which is absent in many fragile states iseffective government and political institutions that provide accountability forthe inhabitants of a country.? Patrick adds, ?If you look around the world, there?s hugedisparity in the ability of states to provide one, or in some cases all, ofthese basic political goods.? Most of these states, he says, are in Africa, andare home to a billion of the world?sinhabitants. ?Africa?s really the host of the most fragile states inthe world, for a number of different reasons, many of them historical,? Patrickcomments. ?Probably the archetype of a fragile ? or really a failedstate ? is Somalia, which has been for nearly 20 years without anyeffective central government institutions?. It has very little effectivecontrol over much of the territory and it exercises virtually no economicmanagement.? In Somalia, international aid groups provide services thatshould be the domain of the government, and security is provided to itsTransitional Federal Government by an external force, namely Ethiopia. Patrick also considers the Democratic Republic of Congo,where war has raged for years, to be a failed state, as well as Zimbabwe, whichunder President Robert Mugabe has undergone a ?precipitous decline? due to?government mismanagement? that?s ravaged the economy and led to a ?drasticdecline in the standard of living? in recent years. Patrick says it?s ?nolonger possible for the world?s richest and most powerful country? ? namely theUS ? ?to remain indifferent to the fate of the planet?s impoverished, insecure,and misgoverned countries.? He explains, ?As global interdependence has accelerated,one of the things that we?ve found is that problems rarely remain withinsovereign frontiers?. There?s great evidence that at times, transnationalthreats spill across the borders of weak and failing states and are facilitatedby weak and dysfunctional governments.? Crime, Patrick says, is a prime example. ?Most of the major epicenters of narcotics production andin many cases transit of illegal drugs occur through weak and failing states?in South America, such as Colombia, and the Middle East, such as Afghanistan,where poppy cultivation makes it the center of the world?s heroin supply. The drugs, says Patrick, end up on American streets andare increasingly being processed in and transported from African states wherecontrols are lax. ?A recent example of the connection between statefragility and transnational threats is the case of Guinea Bissau, which in recentyears has become a haven for narcotics trafficking from Latin America. This isa direct result of incredibly weak institutions in the country, which haveallowed drug traffickers to run rampant and to bribe government officials inthat country.? The United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime recentlyrecognized the burgeoning narcotics crisis in Guinea Bissau and called forextraordinary attention to be paid to the very small country in West Africa. Turning to the terrorism threat posed to the US by failedstates, Patrick again cites Afghanistan, where according to American securityagencies the al-Qaeda organization planned the September 11, 2001, assault onUS targets. This, he states, provides the best-known example ?of the world?smost powerful country attacked by terrorists operating from one of the world?sweakest and poorest states.? Before the 9/11 attacks, al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Ladenfound safe haven in another weak state in Africa, Sudan, and the organizationalso planned attacks on US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania from bases inSomalia. But Patrick says the tendency of state weakness togenerate or facilitate transnational threats is not limited to terrorism. ?If one looks at new and emerging infectious diseasesaround the world, one finds that the inability of states to fulfill publichealth functions, including surveillance and reaction to disease, has been agrave (contributory) aspect in the spread of these diseases.? He points to the SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome)epidemic and bird flu in recent years, which scientists say originated in poorareas in south Asia, and spread to parts of the developed world. ?Whole of government? US approach Patricksays despite ?unprecedented rhetorical attention? to fragile states fromWashington since the events of 9/11, the United States? ?strategic mindset?regarding these countries ?has not fundamentally changed.? ?Since9/11, there has been a great degree of rhetorical emphasis placed by the Bushadministration on weak and failing states as being increasingly important froma national security perspective, and there?s also growing recognition that weakand failing states represent the hard core of the global developmentchallenge,? Patrick explains. ?But despite this recognition and this insight,there has been a lack of strategy.? Hesays the US hasn?t paid enough attention to the ?goal of actually preventingweak and failing states from sliding into instability and conflict.? Instead,Patrick emphasizes, Washington has placed a ?much greater emphasis onpost-conflict reaction. There has been too little investment in the means thatare required to actually help foster institutions in developing countries,particularly those that suffer from very weak institutions.? TheBush administration says it is heavily involved in strengthening democraticinstitutions in fragile states, such as in Iraq and, through initiatives likethe Millennium Challenge Account, in Africa. ButPatrick says ?much more? is required. ?What?sneeded from the next president is a strategic approach to state fragility andfailure that recognizes that any effort to build institutions or to nurtureinstitutions in the developing world will require from the US what I call a?whole of government? approach. This would bring all of the instruments ofnational power and influence that are relevant, to bear.? Hecalls on the next administration to rely less on its military instruments ?bothto reconstruct countries emerging from conflict and also to help stabilizecountries that the United States thinks are in danger of instability.? Patrickwants Washington to utilize its ?civilian tools,? which he says are ?much moreappropriate towards helping to nurture effective states.? Healso wants the new administration to cooperate to a greater degree with theinternational community in strengthening weak countries in Africa. TheBush administration says its new military command for Africa, AFRICOM, isevidence of its growing commitment to developing and securing fragile states. Patrick acknowledges, ?Onone level, the creation of AFRICOM is a very welcome development, because itrationalizes the US Defense Department?s approach to Africa and promises thatthere will be more sustained attention by senior US policymakers to securitychallenges on the African continent.? But he says the newpresident is going to have to deal with ?risk? involved in AFRICOM. ?The Bush administrationappears to be looking at AFRICOM as the proper platform for integrating all ofUS policy engagement with the African continent?. The symbolic problem (withthis) is that it appears to militarize the US approach to the continent byhaving as the instrument of US policy integration, a combatant command.? Patrick continues that oneof the ?substantive problems? with AFRICOM is that ?because it?s so heavilymilitary in its personnel, there is a danger that the instruments and policychoices made by the Command will focus more heavily on aspects of security inthe relevant countries, rather than the long-term developmental challenges andgovernance challenges that are really central to the long-term goal ofstability and response of governance in African countries.? AFRICOM officials counterthat some of the Command?s top personnel are civilian development experts, andthese people ? and not military officers ? will lead its development efforts inAfrica. Nevertheless, Patrick callson the new man in the White House to adopt a ?comprehensive, integratedapproach to the continent of Africa? that places civilian agencies ?in theforefront, places the main accent of US policy on diplomatic and developmentefforts, and takes a more multilateral form, rather than the currentUS-designed and solely US-implemented approach that relies heavily on militaryinstruments.? Patricksays the Bush administration deserves praise for creating the MillenniumChallenge Account (MCA), which he describes as a ?foreign aid basket?. devotedto countries that are well governed and have strong institutions.? Hesays the MCA is ?limited? in that it doesn?t strengthen countries that are mostin need of support. ?TheMCA was created with the rationale that aid is most effective in good policyinstitutional environments. However, while the MCA is appropriate for a certainsub-set of countries that are high-performing, it risks leaving behind thecountries where the world?s bottom (poorest) billion (people) inhabit - andthat includes many of the countries in Africa.? Patrickwants to see the new president expanding the United States? ability to improveconditions in especially weak nations. ?Thoseinclude improved efforts to deliver rule of law assistance, including policeand judiciary assistance, which is critical for good governance in many ofthese countries.? Heargues that the next administration should pursue ?realistic democracypromotion? in failed or failing states. ?A realistic policy ofdemocracy promotion would recognize that there are inherent limits to whatoutsiders can accomplish by themselves in transforming the governancestructures and political systems of foreign countries?. The next administrationshould continue to promote democracy in other countries, but it should do so ina slightly less hectoring and more low profile way.? He wants the new presidentto adopt a policy of fostering democracy that recognizes that the creation ofdemocratic institutions is an ?extremely long-term process that, ultimately, isthe responsibility of the peoples and leaders of the countries that it?sattempting to assist.? Patrick also wants the US?sefforts to promote democracy in Africa and other parts of the world to embraceadvice from the international community. ?It needs to be more of a multilateralundertaking, rather than a ?Made in the USA? enterprise. In some cases theUnited States has been too quick to try to promote very rapid elections. And inhighly divided societies ? particularly ones vulnerable to conflict or justemerging from conflict ? a monomaniacal focus on elections in and of themselvescan be highly destabilizing,? he maintains. Patrick calls for more?organization? in Washington in this regard. ?The US has a democracypromotion framework that is not particularly integrated right now, and so thenext administration must try to bring together and improve the coherence of themultiple agencies that the US now has involved in delivering assistance fordemocracy, which can range from improving independent media to public educationto civic education to actual electoral assistance.? He advises the nextadministration in Washington to establish ?much closer? ties with and supportfor the African Union, which he describes as one of the ?best? developments inAfrica in recent history.