State Failure

In Afghanistan, the United States faces a choice: either establish a permanent administrative and security presence, or stand back and risk the country becoming a haven for organized criminals and terrorists. Staying forever won’t work, so Washington must accept the risks of withdrawal.

To succeed in Afghanistan, the international community must tackle corruption, make aid more effective, improve cooperation with the Afghan government, pursue a regional solution to the conflict, and commit to long-term reconstruction.

Governments across the Middle East and South Asia are increasingly losing power to substate actors that are inserting themselves at a mezzanine level of rule between the government and the people. Western policymakers must address the problem systematically, at both a political and a legal level, rather than continue to pursue reactive and disjointed measures on a case-by-case basis.

In Yemen, where political and tribal authorities compete, interest groups -- including al Qaeda’s regional offshoot, al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula -- have begun to fill the voids.