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Fragile States

This article was written in connection with UWM Institute of World Affairs upcoming program Countries in Crisis on May 5, 2010. For more information, please visit www.iwa.uwm.edu

By: Kira Kay

For decades, the balance of power between strong states was the central issue in discussions of international security: the Cold War, the rise of China, and peace in the Middle East as brokered by the dominant world powers.

But today it is so-called “fragile” states that are seen by many as posing equal, or potentially even greater, threats to global security. The National Security Strategy issued by the Bush Administration in 2002 clearly identified the risk the United States faces from instability emanating from countries whose conflicts and upheavals were once routinely overlooked.

Fragile states run the spectrum from those that are struggling to keep a functional government in place - for example, the central European country of Bosnia and Herzegovina - to those that are failing in their ability to protect and provide for their citizens - the Democratic Republic of the Congo comes immediately to mind.

US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice emphasizes that instability from fragile states can fester and spill over to neighboring countries and create environments where extremists and criminals can operate and where terrorists can find safe heaven. She sees additional threats of disease pandemics and mass migration. Therefore, she says, the United States has a stake in the successful resolution of conflicts even in parts of the world that may seem distant and far-flung to the average American.

More than a billion people across sixty nations are living in fragile or failing states. For them, the inability or unwillingness of their governments to protect citizens and provide basic social services means that large portions of the world’s population will be unable to pull themselves out of poverty, illiteracy, or gender inequality. So, the need to shore up fragile states is one that transcends security – it has economic and moral ramifications as well.

But just as there has been a rising recognition of the risks that fragile states create, there has been an increase in international efforts to stabilize and build up – or rebuild – these nations. Today, the United Nations Department of Peacekeeping has a record 120,000 personnel in 16 missions around the globe. Many more multi-national efforts, often lead by regional bodies such as the African Union or NATO, work alongside, or even independent from, the U.N.

As part of our reporting series on Fragile States we filmed in four countries, on four continents, all of which have been the recipient of large nation-building efforts, with varying degrees of success. Our goal was to examine what has worked and what hasn’t; what lessons could be learned for future efforts; and how the United States might be able to better support – and be supported by – such multi-lateral interventions.

The first story in the “Fragile States” series focused on peacekeeping efforts in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It was the only in-field report to air on national American television during Secretary of State Clinton’s visit to the country last summer, and offered an inside look at the complexities of protecting civilians in one of the most dangerous parts of the world. Challenges to the United Nations mission there – the largest in the world – include a lack of equipment, the responsibility to patrol difficult terrain the size of the Eastern United States, and the necessity to partner with a national army that is almost as predatory on the population as the rebels they are meant to fight. Our reporters got exclusive access to UN Congo chief Alan Doss as he traveled to the frontlines, hoping to shore up his struggling mission.

The series continued with a visit to East Timor, as this fledgling nation celebrated the 10th anniversary of its independence from Indonesia last August. The vast efforts to build the country, almost literally from the ground up, have been referred to as a “test tube” for international intervention, and have provided lessons for other nation building efforts around the world, even Afghanistan. Everything from a functioning army and police force, to governing bodies, to schools and roads were needed and plans had to be developed for the country to adequately manage its natural resources wealth. Success in East Timor is far from guaranteed, but the reporting provided through this “Fragile States” report offered Americans a better understanding of what it takes to stabilize a post-war country.

In October, the “Fragile States” series visited Bosnia, to examine how 14 years of peace and reconstruction have failed to dispel underlying fragility created by the ethnic composition of the country. Rising nationalism is now once again stoking ethnic and political tensions, threatening to undermine the Dayton Peace Agreement that ended the bloodshed there in 1995. Bosnia is currently facing its biggest crisis since the end of its brutal war, and some observers, even diplomat Richard Holbrooke who helped broker the Dayton Accords, fear a return to conflict. Yet this urgent issue, so relevant to the United States, has been almost completely overlooked by the American media.

Finally, the “Fragile States” series wrapped up in Haiti in December, with an examination of this perpetually struggling country’s “moment of hope”, that observers were saying was beginning to take shape in the year or so before the devastating earthquake hit. A confluence of political stability and security was allowing the tentative return of investors, especially those looking to expand Haiti’s once thriving but now mostly mothballed garment industry. Whether Haiti could take advantage of this promising trend and finally pull itself out of failure was an open question. Now the country is facing challenges larger than could ever be foreseen, but this segment provided an American audience with a fresh look at its neighbor and the potential to reconsider what defines humanitarian assistance, which is still relevant as the US steps up as a main player in Haiti’s disaster reconstruction.

The “Fragile States” series also examined the very definition of what it means for a state to be secure. Louise Arbour, President of the International Crisis Group, suggests that analysts have historically looked at security in a very traditional and maybe too narrow focus – with the demobilizing of belligerents, the reintegrating the ex-combatants, and a very military approach to security. Her suggestion is that instead we expand our assessment of the fragility of states to include other indicators of real human security. For example, are girls returning to school? Are women safe in their communities? Is civil society occupying some space? Arbour believes that by looking at these other types of indicators, we will have a better sense of whether this is a society where the state is providing.

To watch the "Fragile States" series, visit the Global Gateway on Fragile States, at http://pulitzergateway.org/fragile-states/, hosted by the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting or the Bureau for International Reporting’s website....

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