It is difficult to separate in practice the two classifications of states:
fragile and failed, as they overlap in the role, function, and sovereignty of
the authority and the performance of governmental institutions. Generally, the
state can be fragile when it is on its way to failure, and both states can be
bad neighbors.
We can also benefit from the common definitions here:
According to G. Lindstrom, the fragile state tends mostly to begin
conflicts with others and have a scanty ability to control its territory. It
empowers exclusionary systems that have many defects and have only meager
infrastructures that are available to greatly reduce the primary social
goods/services that provide and unable to contain specific groups from acts of
violence. In their most severe and deteriorating case, these states tend to
disintegrate, leading to a complete collapse of public order and social
relations.
Lindstrom finds that the decline in the performance of state
institutions and the loss, or erosion, of an important part of their
sovereignty and legitimacy, will leads first to fragility and then to failure.
(That means the failure of the states as a whole is not just a failure of the
government that can be toppled and erects a new government.)
The Fund for Peace defines a failed state as one that has lost control
of its territory and lost its monopoly on the legitimate use of force/violence.
With the erosion of the legitimate authority to make collective decisions, the
inability to provide public services, and the inability to interact with other
countries as a full member of the international community.
Common characteristics of a failed state include: a weak central
government so weak or ineffective that it is unable to raise taxes or other
forms of support, has little practical control over a large portion of its
territory, and thus there is a lack of provision of public services.
However, this study does not aim to expand on the theory of failure and
fragility and the reasons for them. Therefore, I am satisfied noting that
describing the state as a failed state is rarely: due to the local, regional,
and international consequences that may result from it. Instead, it usually
defines the state as a fragile state, even if it has already been a failed one.
As for procedural/operational, we can benefit from the Fund for Peace
index here, which ranks states for this purpose within four basic groups:
(sustainable, stable, warning, or alert). As the index relies on 12
sub-indicators to give each state a total score between zero to 120, or from
the most stable to the least stable, and in each category, there are
sub-categories.
According to the statistics for 2019, the global picture of the index
was as follows:
The warning category, with its three subdivisions, branch out into the
following categories:
-
110+ countries with a very
high alert,
-
100+ countries with a high
alert,
-
90+ countries with a
warning.
According to this classification, the most deliberate and specialized in
this regard, five Arab countries in 2019 fall within what can be considered a
fragile/failed state. They are Yemen, Somalia, Syria, Sudan, Iraq, and Libya.
While Mauritania is rapidly moving out of this category, so it will not
be classified with these countries, especially since its index recorded an
improvement of 2.1 points in 2019 compared to the previous year, and put it on
the edge of countries with a warning level at a total of 90.1 points. (If it
records in 2020 a total of 90 points, an improvement of only 0.1, it goes back
from a country with a warning level to a country with a very high warning
level.)
Many causes have led these countries to the stage of fragility/failure,
whether in terms of government mismanagement, authoritarianism, corruption,
civil and ethnic conflicts, and many other variables. However, it will focus
here on another variable, which is the external intervention that led to the
fragility/failure.
As the Arab environment has witnessed external interventions, some of
which date back to long decades, while others are new, according to the
variables that took place after the Arab Spring revolutions in 2011. It can
classify these interventions into three basic categories:
- International
interventions: some of them date back to long decades, such as the American
intervention, some under reformulated/renewed like the Russian one, and some
are still in the process of building relations, such as the Chinese.
-
Regional interventions:
some of them date back to decades, as well as the Israeli and Iranian, some of
them are new, such as the Turkish, and some under reformulated, such as the
Ethiopian.
-
Arab Interventions:
Although this category is not new, great changes have occurred to the actors
within this category. While Arab history is accustomed to the interventions of
Egypt, Iraq, and Syria, the power equations changed gradually in the Arab
world, until produced new Arab actors, all from the Arab Gulf states: Saudi
Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE. This is an inevitable result of fiscal surpluses
that have led to political surpluses then have turned into interventionist
military surpluses in its region, with a minimal intervention role for Egypt
-minor, not essential.-
In the first two categories, the intervention was to achieve great
benefits at the Arab countries, and the profits were often -and perhaps always-
greater than the expense of the intervention itself.
These intervening countries were not concerned about the disruption of
the Arab countries, especially the regional actors. Despite the inter-regional
intercommunication regarding popular movements and political and social
variables, the identity barrier between regional countries and their Arab
counterparts greatly restricts the causes of interaction from growing. For
example, we do not really notice that Iranian Islamic Revolutions rose throughout
the Arab world after 1979, while the Arab peoples quickly interacted after the
revolution in Egypt in particular.
Here we should note that the Arab peoples sprang after the Egyptian
revolution, not the Tunisian revolution. The success of the Tunisian revolution
was not sufficient to convince the Arab peoples that they can rose. However,
the Tunisian revolution was a spark to trigger a continuous movement in the
Egyptian streets for at least a decade, while many Arab peoples launched the
movement after the success of the Egyptian revolution of January 2011.
Responding to the mutual influence, the regional actors were not
particularly concerned about the consequences of the destruction of the Arab
state. Rather, they were -and still are- working on the dismantling of these
countries and reformulating the region's geography in proportion to their
interests, whether they were capable of that or not.
The third intervention, which is the Arab intervention, can be described
as the chaotic intervention. Whereas, the new Arab actors pushed the targeted
Arab countries to the level of fragility/failure, whether this push was
deliberate or the result of an arbitrary and ill-considered intervention.
The forms of this anarchic intervention varied, from supporting militias,
separatist groups, supporting political movements, financing government
operations against their people, ruining the movements that almost reached
power, directing aid for political goals, and finally direct military
intervention. However, this article does not extend to study the forms of
interference of new Arab actors in the Arab countries (mainly: Yemen, Syria,
Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, and Sudan.)
The analysis of the Arab engagement on the
marginalization/failiarization of these countries is opened. One of these views
is based on ensuring that the old actors (Egypt, Iraq, and Syria) will not
return to the external activity influencing regionally, which could lead to the
consequent significant decline in the new actors' roles and their vested
interests. Nevertheless, regarding the size of the interests gained in the Arab
World, that does not go beyond: supporting/preventing the arrival of political
actors, military training activities, investments that could be obtained
peacefully, and restricting the activity of a state/authority.
These benefits may be useful interests for intervention -military or
paramilitary- in any region and to work on the dismantling of countries, but
under the principal condition that the negative consequences should be less
than the benefits. The state should first guarantee that negative consequences
of the failure/fragility of those countries will not affect it and that there
is no considered negative transmission effect inside it, at least.
Returning to the idea of the role of identity in influencing, the impact
of fragility/failure state in Arab countries will certainly be more widespread
towards Arab countries than to regional countries. Therefore, some damages will
often occur in countries surrounding the fragile/failed states.
According to a study prepared in 2007 by L.P. Chauvet and A.Hoeffler,
the annual cost of a failed state is estimated at $ 276 billion, and the
largest share of this financial burden ($ 206 billion) falls on the shoulders
of the countries neighboring the failed state.
That is, the new Arab actors bear the financial burden of the following:
-
The burden of their
interference in those countries.
-
The economic burdens
resulting from the failure of neighboring countries (206 billion for each
failed country.)
-
The economic burdens that
the international community will impose on the new Arab actors -as rich
countries-, in the post-reconstruction phase -the stage of international
gains.-
This is a financial burden, but the impact extends much further to
identity and politics.
In another study, conducted in 2004, by James Murdoch and Tood Sandler,
the effects of a bad neighbor country caused by a failed neighbor greatly
increase the likelihood of the failure of the good neighbor/other countries,
and this most probably push the whole region into backwardness, at a time when
it moves. It includes groups of warlords, militias, and weapons across borders,
as the phenomenon of instability, according to this study, is an infectious
phenomenon, as is the phenomenon of poverty.
According to the same study, the effects of the decline in the economic
growth rate of these fragile countries will extend geographically to a radius
of 800 km at the least.
Accordingly, there are several hotbeds of explosion (a grouping of
failed states):
-
Fragile/failed Arab
countries bordering on one failed state: Iraq and Syria.
-
Fragile/failed Arab
countries, bordering with several failed states: Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, and
Libya.
As a result, there is a very dangerous global hotbed that includes
Sudan, South Sudan, Eritrea, Somalia, Ethiopia, Central Africa, the Democratic
Republic of the Congo, Chad, Libya, Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger, Uganda, Mali, and
Kenya. These many failed neighboring countries threaten an entire continent,
the surrounding of the continent, and indeed the international order as a
whole, of a global explosion of the grouping of failed states.
If all other variables are neutralized, these affected Arab countries
will witness political, economic and social upheavals that will extend for a
decade at least. According to the following classification:
-
Category of explosive
countries: it was listed previously.
-
A group of countries that
are vulnerable to a critical impact:
o Egypt: falls within the sphere of influence of two fragile/failed
Arab countries, Libya and Sudan together, and another African country: Chad. It
is essentially in the proximity to the fragility/failure stage, falling into
the very high warning category, at 88.4 points.
o Djibouti: It is also located in the sphere of influence of two
fragile/failed Arab countries, Somalia and Yemen, and two other African
countries: Ethiopia and Eritrea. It is also in the category of countries with a
very high warning, with a value of 85.1 points.
o Mauritania: Where it is under the influence of a fragile/failed
African country: Mali, Mauritania is mainly in the very high warning stage at
90.1 points.
o Lebanon: Although Lebanon falls within the sphere of influence
of one failed country (Syria), the existence of a latent conflict with Israel
on its southern borders places it in the same category, except that it is a
country with a very high warning, at a value of 85 points.
-
A group of countries
exposed to a risk of impact:
o Jordan falls under the influence of two fragile/failed countries,
Iraq and Syria. Moreover, it falls within the category of countries with a high
warning, with a value of 75.9.
o Saudi Arabia: It also falls under the sphere of two
fragile/failed countries, Yemen and Iraq, in addition to exposure to the sphere
of Eritrea. In addition to being in the category of countries with a high
warning, at a value of 70.4 points.
o Algeria: It is in the sphere of Libya in the Arab world, but
it is in the sphere of Niger and Mali as well. Therefore, the danger continues,
especially since Algeria is still in the category of countries with a high
warning at 75.4 points, not to mention the turmoil of its internal conditions
after its revolution.
-
Category of Existing Impact
Countries:
o Tunisia: It also falls in the sphere of Libya, but the risk is
much lower, and although it falls into the category of countries with a high
warning, it is about to move to the category of countries with a warning.
-
Category of Potential
Impact Countries:
o Kuwait: It is in the sphere of influence of Iraq, but it is a
country in the category of countries with simple stability. It is better than
all its predecessors, with a level of 53.2 points.
o Oman: It remains the least threatening of its counterparts that
fall in the sphere of failure, although it is in the sphere of Yemen. However,
it is classified as a stable country, at the level of 50 points.
This warning classification will be serious if we use just one variable
(the bad neighbor) and neutralizing the other variables. Nevertheless,
certainly, these variables cannot be neutralized while international alliances
and local wealth help delay the impact of the bad neighbor, divert it from its
path, or build barriers against it (positive variables.)
In this time, there are also many negative variables, including:
-
Continuing international
and regional interventions in the region.
-
The continuation of the
chaotic and intrusive Arab approach.
-
The continuation of the Arab
popular movements that called for democratization and freedom. Especially, that
the Arab world carried out two protest waves and is a candidate for others.
-
The continuous interaction
of inner variables (one or more) in many countries influenced by the bad
neighbor, like low standard of living, high level of authoritarianism, identity
conflicts, etc.
-
New variables like the
sharp drop in oil prices and the coming impact of the Corona epidemic.
-
The continued existence of
the possibility of regional wars.
In conclusion, the Arab scene suggests that there are explosions that
are still interacting in preparation for more chaos and sabotage in the region,
while the Arab countries (the new actors) bear a part of the responsibility for
these repercussions.
ABD ALQADER NANAA
(Ph.D. of Political Science)