Confronting Poverty: Weak States and U.S. National Security

Foreword

vii Foreword throughout history, conflict has arisen between and among major powers , often because a strong state tries to prove itself stronger than others . The good news about the current era is that the major powers are at peace; their going to war, while not unimaginable, is highly unlikely. That is largely because they have a stake—that is, a national interest—in the maintenance of a stable, prosperous and peaceful international system . One big piece of bad news is the subject of this timely and forwardlooking book: the threat that weak and failed states pose to the welfare of people across the planet—a threat that is virtually certain to increase in the years to come unless strong states and the international community as a whole take concerted remedial action. For states as for individual human beings, weakness and failure are often both a cause and a consequence of extreme poverty. Strong, prosperous countries have an ethical obligation to do all they can to end the poverty that degrades the lives of 3 billion people in the developing world. Yet poverty is also a national-security challenge for all, including the United States. Poverty increases the risk of civil war, facilitates the spread of many communicable diseases, exacerbates vulnerability to climate change, and creates conditions that violent forces can exploit. The global financial crisis has further destabilized the world’s poorest countries, adding new urgency to the issue of weak and failed states. 00-0390-7 fm 7 12/8/09 12:20 PM viii FOREWORD This book, coedited by three former colleagues at Brookings—Susan E. Rice, Corinne Graff, and Carlos Pascual—serves as a timely reminder to U.S. policymakers that alleviating global poverty and shoring up weak states are not only humanitarian and economic imperatives, but key components of a more balanced and sustainable U.S. national security strategy. Confronting Poverty: Weak States and U.S. National Security draws on examples from across the developing world, focuses on the effects of low income and bad governance in weak states, and explores the complex and often indirect dynamics that can lock countries—and entire regions—in a downward spiral of continued poverty and civil strife. The book examines the phenomenon of weak and failed states in the context of four broad transnational challenges: (1) violent extremism, (2) conflict with spillover effects, (3) climate change, and (4) the spread of infectious diseases. The chapters that follow clarify the connections between these threats and poverty while correcting common misconceptions about what those connections are. At Brookings, we put a premium on bringing hard-headed, highquality , independent, fact-based research to bear on the twin tasks of analyzing the problem and proposing solutions. In that spirit, all the authors close ranks behind the need to prioritize economic development and poverty alleviation in weak states as a means of bolstering international and U.S. national security, and the concluding chapter elaborates on that overarching policy recommendation and highlights lessons learned about the effectiveness of aid in weak states. Confronting Poverty grows out of a project on global poverty and U.S. national security that Susan E. Rice directed at Brookings from 2002 through January 2009, before she was appointed U.S. permanent representative to the United Nations. The book builds on the findings of the Index of State Weakness in the Developing World, an analytic tool that Rice published in 2008 in a Brookings report coauthored with Stewart Patrick, now at the Council on Foreign Relations. The index utilizes twenty indicators in four key areas of state function (economic performance, political governance, internal peace and security, and social welfare) to measure state performance and rank developing countries . The book also benefits from the expertise of then vice president and director of foreign policy Carlos Pascual, whose previous work at Brookings focused on conflict management and economic development. Because two of the book’s editors are now public servants, I want to 00-0390-7 fm 8 12/8/09 12:20 PM ix FOREWORD stress that their chapters here reflect their personal views and research they conducted during their term at Brookings. Their work on this book was completed before taking up their current posts. The book does not represent the views of the U.S. Department of State or the U.S. government . In addition, since Brookings is committed to nonpartisanship in all it does, the editors invited...