>>>>Dean Grillot: Also within the subject of identity crisis in the global community
is this notion of failed state -- another significant global issue that has global consequences.
So Dr. Cruise, failed states. We tend to understand them as those who have a government that can
no longer provide any kind of governance: any kind of political, economic, social, other
type of stability within that territory that they are said to govern. So we think of what
when we, when we, when we think of failed states, who comes to mind?
>>Dr. Cruise: Well, it will be no surprise to your students that looking for failed states
we often look to the global South. That these, again as you mentioned, are countries where
there's probably a government in place, but it's not very effective. They have been probably
corrupted, and are not able to provide for your citizens-- or for their citizens. And
when that happens, then you have other groups that come to fill the gap, be these terrorists,
be they pirates, be they some sort of other nefarious group that will try to provide for
the citizens or make or, sorry, or take advantage of that space that's been opened. So if we
think about some of the countries -- Somalia is considered the most failed state, obviously
then we can associate that with piracy, or we've heard a lot about that in the last 5
years or so. We can also think of the Democratic Republic of Congo, a country that has had
violence for multiple decades, very severe violence. And then the next two countries
are Sudan and and the new country of South Sudan that split off of Sudan, again, countries
that have been in the news because of their violence and ineffective governance. It's
it's very serious again because the population is not being taken care of, and this leads
to violence, security concerns, health concerns and in some instances perhaps environmental
concerns as well.
>>Dean Grillot: And the consequences for others, right? I mean when you mention piracy, obviously
there are countries of, you know from around the world that are trying to traverse those
waters and are, are approached by pirates and taken hostage and are dealing with theft
and so that there are significant not only internal consequences within that failed state,
but certainly outside that failed state. You mentioned safe havens for terrorists organizations,
for example, and the impact that that has. We saw that happened in Afghanistan when Al-Qaeda
was able to operate you know with impunity, you know, within the territory of Afghanistan.
The government of Afghanistan was not able to prevent that from happening, and so you
know the goal of this global war on terror has been to try to prevent states from failing,
so that you don't have these this open space, as you put it, for these kinds of consequences.
So the question then is as it is every single time: What do you do about it? Do we intervene?
I mean in the case of Afghanistan, right, we did after September 11, 2001 and the attack
on the United States in New York and Washington D.C, you had an intervention to try to remake
the the state of Afghanistan. You've had previous intervention in Somalia that failed miserably,
and and so they continue today as that failed state. So, you know, consequences of intervention
too, I mean, can you just ignore these failed states? I mean what do we do?
>>Dr. Cruise: Well, unfortunately if we look at the the Failed State Index, which is a
pretty good gauge of which states are are in trouble, there are over 50 states that
are considered nearly failed or failed. And that simply would be too many to intervene
in. We will intervene in such instances like you mentioned: Afghanistan, Somalia, when
there are other things going on, when we see some sort of advantage. And it's it's debatable
whether Afghanistan has been successful and of course Somalia wasn't, so I don't see intervention
as being the tactic that the United States is going to take. Obviously, the other solution
is to look at aid. Look at getting food to the populations, trying to get them institutional
development. Help bolster their economies, because often these are very poor countries
and if you can bolster their economies, you can get the people to support the governments
if they have money in their, their checkbooks. And so that's part of it, really helping them
develop is going to help them create a more stable state but that is much, much easier
said than done.
>>Dean Grillot: So defining the problem -- much easier than solving it, as always.
>>Dr. Cruise: As with most. [both laugh]
>>Dean Grillot: So students, what do you think? Failed states: how big of a problem are they,
and what would you do about them?