Building failed states,

“Building Failed States,” by Mr. Richard McCall.
Since the end of the Cold War, the United States
and its international partners have struggled to deal
with a complex set of foreign policy challenges,
most notably global terrorism and the failed state
phenomenon. Failed states have often served as the
breeding grounds for terrorist movements. Classic
examples include Afghanistan, Somalia, Iraq, and the
federally administered tribal areas of Pakistan.
The U.S. ability to manage these challenges more
effectively will require institutional restructuring
of our national security apparatus, particularly the
Department of Defense (DoD), Department of State/
U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID),
and our intelligence agencies; significant changes in
bureaucratic cultures; and an entirely new strategy of
engagement.
An excellent starting point for serious reform
would be the recommendations contained in Dr. Jeffrey
McCausland’s recent publication entitled Developing
Strategic Leaders for the 21st Century.1 McCausland, a
retired Army colonel, is former Dean of the U.S. Army
War College. His study is very comprehensive, and I
won’t go into great detail here. But I would like to cite
the following:
. . . it is crucial that we develop a system that places the
right people in the right places in government at the right
moment. The nation critically needs civilian policymakers
who can manage the change and deal with the here
and now. It is essential that we develop career civilian
leaders for strategic decisionmaking in the national
security process. Such development must include the
recruitment of quality personnel, experiential learning
through a series of positions of increasing responsibility,

training for specific tasks or missions, and continuous
education that considers both policy and process. . . . [I]t
requires people who are not only substantively qualified
and knowledgeable regarding policy issues, but also
possess the leadership abilities to direct large complex
organizations.2
The bottom line is that we do not have knowledgebased
skills or sufficient quantity and quality of
leadership that can manage change. Nor do we have
bureaucratic agility and flexibility in our current national
security system to adjust to realities on the ground or
to changing dynamics. Just as institutions were created
to manage the global economy and prevent a repeat
of the 1920s and 1930s; just as political and military
institutions were created and restructured to manage
the Cold War; we are now compelled to restructure
our mechanisms and tools to manage the real world
as it is today. We also need to reevaluate many of our
assumptions and develop different analytical tools and
frameworks and to recognize that these are essential
components to a new national security strategy.
Yet, since the end to the Cold War, the United
States and the international community continue to
struggle with the failed state phenomenon. The logic
of democratization and market economics has driven
the notion that many societies are in transition—
that there is somewhat of a linear progression from
centrally controlled political and economic systems
to democratic and free market-driven systems. Yet,
in these so-called transitions, failed states included,
it is apparent that a difficult and patient societal
transformation is the more appropriate description of
the processes required for peace, stability, and political
pluralism to be established and sustained over the long
term.

In too many areas of the world, countries have not
undergone the processes fundamental to the creation
of a modern nation-state. Many of these states are
comprised of diverse ethnic, religious, and cultural
communities. In the absence of functioning institutions
that reflect a working consensus within these societies,
state coercion is relied upon to maintain the grip on
power by the group in control. Even when there is
voluntary cooperation among and between diverse
elements within a state, this cooperation is vulnerable to
stress, no matter what the source (such as competition
for limited resources, environmental degradation,
corruption, and impunity), and can be the spark that
sets off violent conflict. In both instances, coercive state
institutions or voluntary cooperation, the status quo is
vulnerable to complete breakdown.
I am going to briefly touch upon a concept that has
largely been ignored by the international community’s
preference for top-down approaches to nation-building.
I am referring to constituting processes (those processes
which create institutions) at all levels of society. This
institution building is fundamental to the maintenance
of coherence and order during times of stress. In the
case of voluntary cooperation, it can only be sustained
by encapsulating such cooperation within institutions
that reflect not only a common set of values, but also a
strong sense of national community. These processes,
in turn, can transcend the divisive nature of localism or
communalism, such as ethnic and/or religious issues.
While most modern nation-states have gone
through these constituting processes, the citizens of
most countries have not been engaged in processes
whereby common values are agreed upon and
institutions created that reflect this fundamental
societal consensus. The problems of disease, illiteracy,

hunger, poverty, corruption, and terrorism cannot be
adequately addressed in a world community where too
many countries fail to attain the status of the “capable”
nation-state. They remain vacuums that terrorists,
narco-traffickers, demagogues, and dictators are more
than willing and capable to fill and exploit for their
own ends.
I could go on at length and in greater detail as to
the types of programmatic interventions we should
consider as essential elements to a new national
security strategy. Time does not allow me to do so now.
However, I do want to make some final observations.
While there has been some progress on the
margins, the U.S. Government still tends to look at
world problems as a discrete and differentiated set
of security, political, economic, and assistance issues
and sectors. We tend to develop segmented policy
and programmatic responses based on narrow, shortterm,
parochial interests. As a result, we have failed
to understand the reality and internal dynamics of
problems on the ground which prevents us from
devising appropriate strategies to fit the situation and
address the root causes of conflict.
There is a multiplicity of U.S. Government
departments, agencies, and offices involved in
articulating and implementing U.S. policy abroad.
Oftentimes this promotes confusion and even
contradictory policy priorities. Just as the problems
of the countries in which USAID operates cannot be
solved effectively by a set of isolated activities, neither
can the United States project a coherent policy abroad
through a series of discrete and differentiated tools
with oftentimes differing priorities. We need a strategic
vision that recognizes how each of these sets of problems
relates to each other. Unfortunately, we continue to be

bogged down by a process that is preoccupied with
individual boxes and the competition for resources
among these boxes.
Finally, I want to make the point that any
international engagement in dealing with a failed state
has to focus first on peace building and not nationbuilding.
Peace building is bottom-up process that
engages all segments of society in defining not only
a common set of values around which there can be a
working consensus, but also fundamental agreement
on the systems and nature of the institutions which
would be serve them.
Nation-building, as we have approached it, has
focused too much on a top-down approach, writing
constitutions that have little, if no meaning for most
in these societies, holding elections quickly, and
focusing almost exclusively on constituting a central
government. The end result all too often exacerbates
existing tensions and conflict in society, leading to
more violence. Such an approach denies a broad-based
ownership of the processes and does not give the vast
majority of the population a stake in the outcome.
In my estimation, this is a short synopsis of
the challenges facing the next administration, be it
Republican or Democrat.
ENDNOTES - Mr. McCall
1. Jeffrey D. McCausland, Developing Strategic Leaders for the
21st Century, Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army
War College, February 2008.