Helman and Ratner described the failed nations as "utterly incapable of sustaining itself as a member of the international community". William Olsen expanded the definition by including states facing serious "internal problems that threaten their continued coherence" or "significant internal challenges to their political order". Events of nine-eleven have given acute importance to the problems of failed and failing states as they can both be hospitable and can harbor non- state actors warlords and terroristsand of the need to understand the dynamics of the nation-state's failure as being central to the war on terrorism . Robert Rotenberg (New nature of national state failure, The Washington Quarterly, Summer 2002) finds failed states as tense, deeply conflicted, having intense and enduring violence against the government or the regime caused, among others, by appalling living standards, decaying infrastructure of daily life, greed of rulers, patronage based system of extraction from ordinary citizens etc. Effectively failed and failing states are unable to deliver political goods security, education, health services, economic opportunities, law and order and a judicial system to administer it, infrastructural facilities to its citizens.

Failed states are unable to provide security, a most basic demand of the citizens. Though a structured law enforcement authority exists yet crimes are committed with impunity. Rarely a citizen can build a house or an apartment complex without giving protection money to the criminals of that area. No businessman, be he one who sells odd articles sitting beside the footpath or one owning a factory employing hundreds of people, can afford to run business peacefully unless he pays regular protection money to the local Mafia who in turn allegedly enjoys political patronage. Global Competitive Index of the World Economic Forum in 2003, in the case of Bangladesh for example, has placed the country at 79 out of 80 countries assessed. The survey identified corruption as the most inhibiting factor in doing business in Bangladesh. Inefficient bureaucracy, inadequate infrastructure, poor law and order, policy instability also affect the country's business environment (The Daily Star October 31, 2003). Transparency International has held the police in Bangladesh as corrupt and also indicated the presence of police- criminal nexus among some members of the force. Custodial deaths at the hands of law enforcement authorities are not unknown in Bangladesh. US State Department's International Religious Freedom Report 2002 not only described Bangladeshi police as being "generally ineffective in upholding the law" but "often are slow to assist members of religious minorities who have been victims of crime". It should, however, be admitted that police brutality is not directed towards any particular religious community but is quite agnostic in its choice of victims.

It is often fallaciously assumed that failed states are generally asphyxiated dictatorships like Taliban's Afghanistan, Mobutu's Zaire or Barre's Somalia. Though these were undoubtedly failed states, some are adorned with democratic institutions though flawed. As Robert Rotberg explains if legislatures exist at all they are rubber stamp machines. Democratic debates are noticeably absent. The judiciary is derivative of the executive rather than being independent and citizens know that they can not rely on judicial system for redress or remedy especially against the government. The bureaucracy has long lost its sense of professional responsibility and exists only to carry out the orders of its political masters. Indeed promotions to higher posts or transfers to coveted posts largely depend on passing the DNA tests for loyalty to the party in power.

In September last year British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw enumerated some of the characteristics of failed states. In general terms, Straw said, a state failed when it was unable : (a) to control its territory and guarantee security to its citizens, (b) to maintain the rule of law, promote human rights, and provide effective governance, and (c) to deliver public goods to its people( such as economic growth, education and health care etc). In Straw's analysis it is possible to identify indicators of each of these elements of failure. For example, security criteria could be assessed by finding out if there are areas beyond the control of the government or presence of significant ethnic, religious or inter-group conflicts. On governance , the indicators could include the ability of the government to implement policies; extent of corruption able to distort optimum implementation of decisions; ability of the people to influence governmental decisions without resorting to violence; and, presence of institutions to facilitate peaceful transference of power. As regards economy, the indicators could include the stability of the state's economy; its dependence on certain industries or on agricultural sector; effective economic management; per capita GDP; literacy; life expectancy etc. Apart from the horrific events like that of nine-eleven, Jack Straw's "continual fear and danger of violent death" in Hobbesian terminology is fuelled by the fact that over the past decade wars in and among failed states have killed about eight million people and have displaced another four million, most being civilians.

The logical question asked is why do states fail? Robert Dorff of North Carolina University traces the failed state phenomenon to the collapse of the colonial order following the Second World War. Suddenly many states without having the required institutions and without the experience of self-government as they were colonies found themselves free from external dominance. Even before this phenomenon weak states were not unknown as Walter Lippman wrote in 1915 that the overwhelming problem of diplomacy was due to weak states that were industrially backward and politically incompetent to prevent outbreak of internal violence. The cold war competition compounded the malaise as competing super powers showered the failing states with economic and military assistance. They thus ignored the fundamental premise of "democratic peace" which stipulates that democracies do not generally go to war against other democracies because internal democratic norms promote external democratic behaviour and institutional checks and balances of democracies place constraints on the aggressive behaviour of the leaders. The end of the cold war which dried up economic assistance pushed many of the failing states into the black hole of politico-economic disaster. Ironically the end of the cold war also brought along the "democratic moment" when many erstwhile dictatorships were suddenly wearing the garb of democracy. Because many of these states had known only authoritarianism for decades their sudden introduction to democracy brought forth a challenge to both the rulers and the ruled about how to strike a balance between enjoyment of rights with duties and obligations to the state. Besides the disappearance of a strong central authority encouraged pockets of chaos and anarchy along ethnic and religious lines or among minorities who had felt asphyxiated in the past regimes. Taking the advantage of the weakness of the central authority gangs and criminal syndicate assumed control over streets of cities. Ordinary police force either became paralysed or was infected with the contagion of criminality. Since anarchy became the norm the ordinary citizens turned to godfathers/ warlords or other strong figures for protection.

Since failed states by definition denote ungovernability the consequent rampant criminality gives rise to sweeping despair and hopelessness. But when national ungovernability becomes global it starts to adversely affect the neighbouring countries and as nine-eleven demonstrated even powerful distant lands. Oslo Conference on Root Causes of Terrorism found, among others, failed or weak states leaving a power vacuum for exploitation by terrorist organisations to maintain safe heavens, training facilities, and launching terrorist attacks. Because of the direct causal relationship between failing states and terrorism having been established long before nine-eleven Boutros Ghali in 1992 addressed the issue of reduced significance of sovereignty in the post-cold war world and the concomitant possibility of UN intervention in the domestic affairs of member states. He suggested that such intervention would be appropriate in the face of a collapsed domestic governing authority, displaced populations and gross violations of human rights or when developments in failed states threaten international peace and security.

More often than not state failures are man made. Leadership decisions and leadership failures have destroyed states and contributed to the fragility of existing institutions. Mobutu's kleptocratic rule and Robert Mugabe's obduracy are two such examples. But since Robert Kagan's prescription of military solution to security issues does not have universal appeal, one could heed Jack Straw's advice( Failed and Failing States06.09.02) to take recourse to a range of tools some developmental and some diplomatic to strengthen states prone to failure. Doing so is far less expensive than reconstructing states after failure. Because prevention of state failure is imperative it hoped that the recent UNSC debates and the just concluded Madrid conference on Iraq have impressed upon the high and mighty that multilateral approach rather than display of muscularity holds the key to real peace and prosperity of the world.

Kazi Anwarul Masud is a former Secretary and Ambassador