The Concept of Failed State, New War and New Terrorism - Essay Example

In a globalized world, the equations between nations and various agencies are changing almost on a daily basis spurred on by development in technology, increased ease and frequency of travel, and a worldwide media that is shrinking the world even further. In such an environment, it is but natural that the nature of human conflict would change as well, and political theory evolve to keep pace with it. In the post Cold War scenario, “new war” and “ new terrorism”are therefore terms for conflict that have found more widespread coinage in the past two decades. Closely associated with them is the concept of “failed states”and all of these are part of an attempt to describe the political climate in a world where the race of the superpowers is no longer valid, and balance of power is determined by totally new and different factors altogether. Our purpose is to determine the extent to which “new war” and “new terrorism”are responsible for state failure or “failed states”, and to do this a clear definition and understanding of all the three terms is essential. Failed states have been defined by various theorists differently. For the purposes of our discussion, we will consider the theories of “failure to deliver political goods” and “emerging anarchy”. The author of books like State Failure and State Weakness in a Time of Terror, Robert I. Rotberg, has summarized the theory of “failure to deliver political goods” in these terms: “Nation-states exist to deliver political goods—security, education, health services, economic opportunity, environmental surveillance, a legal framework of order and a judicial system to administer it, and fundamental infrastructural requirements such as roads and communications facilities—to their citizens. Failed states honor these obligations in the breach. They increasingly forfeit their function as providers of political goods to warlords and other non-state actors. In other words, a failed state is no longer able or willing to perform the job of a nation-state in the modern world”.( ) This means that a failed state is characterized by certain indicators like non-existent safety and security for citizens, crumbling health care, education, infrastructure and economy. This sort of situation can give rise to “emerging anarchy” where : "Failed states" can be viewed as a problem of "emerging anarchy" where organized groups that lack many of the attributes of statehood must pay attention to the primary problem of their own security. In a state of emerging anarchy, or whenever the internal balance of power shifts, questions of control become pre-eminent. This strategic environment can cause hostile groups to fear extinction and yield to mob violence. In a failed state where the lack of a central agency to provide law and order gives rise to warring factions struggling to fill the power vacuum, state failure is involved in a vicious circle with the outcomes of “new war”. The term “new war” took on a new meaning after the events of September 11, but in fact, the term had already been coined in the 1990s by Mary Kaldor, who went on to explain her theory in magazines like The nation in November 2001: These new wars have to be understood in the context of globalization. They involve transnational networks, based on political claims in the name of religion or ethnicity, through which ideas, money, arms and mercenaries are organized.....In the new wars, the goal is not military victory; it is political mobilization. Whereas in old-fashioned wars, people were mobilized to participate in the war effort, in the new wars, mobilizing people is the aim of the war effort, to expand the networks of extremism. In the new wars, battles are rare and violence is directed against civilians. The strategy is to gain political power through sowing fear and hatred, to create a climate of terror, to eliminate moderate voices and to defeat tolerance. And the goal is to obtain economic power as well. The “new war” is more of a guerrilla warfare, a protracted long term affair, not a decisive one like in old warfare where the two sides fought for a limited period of time, and the war was won by either. somewhat in the nature of what is today taking place in Somalia, where warring factions are involved in a long and damaging conflict. The protracted nature of the war takes its toll on the state, encouraging anarchy and further weakening its infrastructure and economy, and pushing it towards the brink of collapse. Somalia is such a collapsed state today, where the concept of a unified state has disappeared in a black hole. The “new war” can also be seen in Iraq, where Iraqi insurgents have not allowed the biggest military power in the world to establish a stable nation-state in Iraq. Mary Kaldor feels the American invasion has given rise to a “new war” in a state that was already weak: .....on the eve of the invasion, Iraq was showing all the signs of incipient state failure – lack of legal revenue sources, decline of state services, loss of legitimacy, erosion and proliferation of military and security agencies, the rise of sectarian identity politics and of criminality. The invasion simply condensed that process into a short three-week period. In the aftermath, the growing political violence exhibits all the characteristics of what I call a “new war”. ( ) We discuss the case of Iraq in relation to “new war” and “state failure” as a relevant instance of how “new war” can contribute towards state failure. The “new war” in Iraq has targeted all the areas in Iraq which are daily pushing it to the brink of state failure: security for the common Iraqi is under terrible threat, with mounting body counts, and thus the most important political goods identified by Rotberg is not available to the Iraqi citizen. The insecure atmosphere also discourages trade and commerce, giving a jolt to the economy. The frequent kidnappings, intimidations and assassinations of those in administration not only “create a climate of terror” but also strike at the root of the political goods next in importance, namely, infrastructure. There are continual assaults by the proponents of “new war” on the systems that provide a modern individual with basic needs like oil, gasoline, transportation, telephone and electricity. Law and order, education and health care are of abysmally low standard, and continue to degenerate in a classic case of what the “new war” can do to a weak state, by relentlessly nudging it towards failure. The concept of “new terrorism” is somewhat similar in that it also involves the ability to create “ a climate of terror” and seeks to “eliminate moderate voices and to defeat tolerance”. But there is a significant difference between old terrorism and “new terrorism”. Whereas the old terrorist networks like the IRA were bound to a particular territory supporting local causes and acting locally rarely crossing borders, proponents of “new terrorism”, the Islamic Al quaeda for instance, are border-less. They are willing to shift anywhere, and create bases in any part of the world. Today's cross-border groups have no such attachment to territory. They view territory expediently, as a base from which they can organize their campaigns and plot their attacks. The new breed of Islamic terror groups are, according to Takeyh and Gvosdev, 'explicitly global' - in the sense that they have broadly anti-Western views rather than locally defined objectives, and their members hail from different states rather than from a distinct community with distinct interests. For these 'global' terrorists, territory is merely a place from which they can plot.( ) Significantly for our discussion, they are attracted towards weak states, which “serve as a catalyst to non-state terrorist networks. They provide locations for critical face-to-face meetings/training that create the lifelong bonds of trust necessary for the smooth operation of covert networks..... They are also excellent conduits for transnational crime (drug and human trafficking primarily) that fund ongoing operations”. But the new terrorists do not merely use weak states as a safe haven and meeting place, like Al quaeda used Afghanistan. They actively seek to form alliances with local terrorist organizations, much in the nature of joint ventures by multinationals, as long as the target is the same, the Western world. This is what the “new terrorists” are presently doing in Iraq, and their current role in promoting insurgency is now well acknowledged by the West: “Al Qaeda in Iraq played an important role at the beginning of the war. Zarqawi set up something that hadn't existed before, but at this stage the infrastructure is set up very nicely.”( )http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5396966.stm. The only thing that can now save Iraq from state failure is a strong infrastructure, established security and a democratic state in control, but the “new terrorists” like Al-quaeda are doing everything in their power to prevent these from materializing. It is also important to note that the targets of new terrorism are meant to not only create a sensation, but also achieve damaging economic impact. The choice of targets for terrorist attacks is often considered to be random or illogical. In other cases targets are seen as being chosen for their symbolic importance to the audience the terrorists are seeking to reach or to indicate that no area of the country is safe. Terrorist groups, however, also choose their targets because of the economic impact that the attacks will have. There are patterns in economic attacks since different groups choose different kinds of targets. There may be increases in economic targeting, especially in the tourism sector where attacks create economic hardship and to reduce revenues for the governments. Foreign investment projects have also become frequent targets because of their economic potential for increasing government capacities. The September 11 attacks threw America into financial turmoil, and the foiled bits to damage the Saudi oil refinery in February of this year had financial repercussions in mind. “The Feb. 24 unsuccessful terrorist attack in Saudi Arabia on the world's largest oil processing facility was intended to bring jihad to the wallets of consumers around the world. It prompted nervous buyers to bid up the price of a barrel of light crude oil by $2.37, or roughly 4 percent, on the New York Mercantile Exchange”. The new terrorists are not only targeting innocent civilians but also economic strongholds, which shows that they are becoming more comprehensive in their agenda of damage. They not only kidnap or assassinate members of the government, they threaten security of civilians as well as infrastructure. The modern concept of nation state as we know it is so far the only established way for peace in the globalized world: “it is not clear what alternative creators and guarantors of peaceful order could or would take the place of the state in a wholly globalized world. The state remains the only effective mechanism through which people can govern themselves.” State failure is thus a situation that can only bring conflict not only inside the state but also around it, and thus it is important to study all the factors that push a state towards failure. After our study of “new war” and “new terrorism”, we come to the conclusion that each of these is related to a failed state in a vicious circle: they thrive on weak or failed states, and in turn push them more towards more anarchy, chaos, and further failure in terms of security and infrastructure. Thus, though they are not the root cause of state failure, they thrive on a failed state, and actively work towards pushing it into collapse. 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