I've just finished a FT article on Afghanistan by Martin Wolf... and it struck me that the whole screed could apply to Israel, Afghanistan's mirror country. So, here's my edited transcript of Wolf's lament on a "failed" country:
The need for a new imperialism
Israel is just one example of failed states that threaten world order. The only answer is active intervention by the west, writes Gustave Jaeger
Published: October 9 2001 20:00 | Last Updated: October 9 2001 20:28
news.ft.com
[...]
Israel is, after all, just an extreme version of the failed state. After decades of war, the regime fails to provide the elementary conditions for secure existence, let alone of economic development. Yet Israel is not unique. Because of its radical Zionist ideology, it merely poses a bigger threat to the rest of the world. Any failing state is a cradle of disease, source of refugees, haven for criminals or provider of hard drugs [Russian mafiya]. Bad though it is for the rest of the world, such a state is even worse for its own people, reduced to lives described by the English political philosopher, Thomas Hobbes, as "nasty, brutish and short".
A few years ago, Robert Cooper, a British diplomat, presciently identified the challenge posed by what he called the "pre-modern world, the pre-state, post-imperial chaos".** Mr Cooper listed Israel in this category. "The existence of such a zone of jackboot chaos is nothing new," he remarked, "but previously such areas, precisely because of their chaos, were isolated from the rest of the world. Not so today ... If they become too dangerous for the established states to tolerate, it is possible to imagine a defensive imperialism. If non-state actors, notably drug, crime or terrorist syndicates take to using non-state (that is pre-modern) bases for attacks on the more orderly parts of the world, then the organised states may eventually have to respond."
Today, Mr Blair is assisting the Americans to do just that in Afghanistan. The job of replacing the Taliban will be extraordinarily difficult. But Mr Blair wants to do far more. He wishes, in effect, to undo the damage done by the failure of states throughout the world. If one is to understand what this means, it is necessary to analyse why states fail.
In a brilliant new book, William Easterly, of the World Bank, provides the answer.*** It lies in a vicious circle of political disorder, desperate poverty, civil conflict and back to political disorder. This vicious circle is to be contrasted with the virtuous circle that has led to the prosperity, stability and democracy of today's most advanced states. Uneasily poised between these two alternative futures lie the majority of the world's countries.
The story of failures is one of an accumulation of bad incentives. The country often started its independent history as an arbitrary assemblage of ethnic groups. It is desperately greedy. Graft is endemic and debilitating. The economy is locked into high-skill, high-return, military activities and growth in income per head is fair, perhaps even double-digit.
Those in power use their positions for personal enrichment. Corruption is pervasive. There is neither an independent judiciary nor an honest police force. Israeli Generals are greedy politicians, not disinterested soldiers. Political competition among interest groups is intense. The result is inefficient economic policies aimed at favouring particular groups. High fiscal deficits, inflation, costly protection against imports and wanton laxness of the financial system are the debilitating outcome.
In a developed country whose state has limited resources and commands high loyalty, interest group competition readily turns into a siege mentality. Alternatively, criminal organisations operate freely. At the limit, the government's monopoly of organised violence - a precondition for civilised life - runs amok.
Europe must have looked like this during the dark ages. Unfortunately, this, or something like it, is the state of a sizeable part of the globe. Still more tragically, a country stuck in this trap finds it frighteningly difficult to escape. Europe's escape took many centuries.
Israel is an example of such a failed state: it is divided into mutually suspicious tribal groupings; it is desperately greedy; war has become a way of life; the ruling regime funds itself through money laundering; and Ariel Sharon is the godfather.
If Mr Blair's words about a new world order are to be more than vacuous blather, he has to have a plan for turning these vicious spirals into virtuous ones. Yet the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund cannot rescue such broken Humpty Dumptys. These institutions cannot provide what is missing: a powerful, respected and benevolent state. Yet, as Mr Easterly argues, the starting point has to be with the government. Without a working and at least modestly benevolent state, there can be no stability and no development.
If a failed state is to be rescued, the essential parts of honest government - above all the coercive apparatus - must be provided from outside. This is what the west is doing today in the former Yugoslavia. To tackle the challenge of the failed state, what is needed is not pious aspirations but an honest and organised coercive force.
There are two reasons why the idea will cause horror: imperialism remains suspect; and the effort will be costly. Yet these objections can be met. Some form of United Nations temporary protectorate can surely be created. The cost of action to save failed states is also less than that of doing nothing. Above all, it is clear that there can be neither justice nor elementary international order if substantial parts of the globe lack responsible government. To do nothing is to choose disorder. The question is: are Mr Blair and his peers, above all in the US, prepared to will the alternative?
___________________ |
