It is challenging to distinctly separate fragile states from failed states in practice, as their roles, functions, sovereignty, and governmental performance often overlap. Generally, a state can be considered fragile when it is on the path to failure, and both types of states can pose significant challenges to their neighbors.
Common definitions provide clarity on this matter:
According to G. Lindstrom, a fragile state is prone to initiating conflicts with others and struggles to control its territory. It implements exclusionary systems with numerous defects and has limited infrastructure, which severely restricts the provision of essential social goods and services. Such states are also unable to prevent specific groups from engaging in violent acts. In their most severe and deteriorating state, these countries may disintegrate entirely, leading to the collapse of public order and social relations.
Lindstrom argues that the decline in the performance of state institutions and the loss or erosion of significant portions of their sovereignty and legitimacy leads first to fragility and then to failure. This implies that the failure of a state encompasses more than just the failure of a government, which could potentially be replaced.
The Fund for Peace defines a failed state as one that has lost control over its territory and its monopoly on the legitimate use of force and violence. It is characterized by the erosion of legitimate authority to make collective decisions, the inability to provide public services, and the incapacity to interact with other countries as a full member of the international community.
Common characteristics of a failed state include a central government that is so weak or ineffective that it cannot raise taxes or other forms of support, has little practical control over large portions of its territory, and fails to provide public services.
This study does not aim to expand on the theory of state failure and fragility or their causes. Therefore, it will be sufficient to note that describing a state as failed is rare due to the potential local, regional, and international consequences. Instead, such states are usually defined as fragile, even if they have effectively failed.
Operationally, we can refer to the Fund for Peace's Fragile States Index, which ranks states within four basic categories: sustainable, stable, warning, and alert. The index relies on 12 sub-indicators to give each state a total score between zero and 120, ranging from the most stable to the least stable. Within each category, there are further sub-categories.
We observe that fragile/failed states fall into the warning category, which is subdivided into warning, high warning, and very high warning.
According to 2019 statistics, the global picture of the index was as follows:
- 110+ countries in the very high alert category,
- 100+ countries in the high alert category,
- 90+ countries in the warning category.
According to this classification, which is among the most deliberate and specialized, five Arab countries in 2019 were considered fragile or failed: Yemen, Somalia, Syria, Sudan, Iraq, and Libya.
Mauritania is rapidly moving out of this category, having recorded an improvement of 2.1 points in 2019 compared to the previous year, placing it on the edge of the warning level with a total score of 90.1 points. If it improves by just 0.1 points in 2020, it will move from the warning category to the very high warning category.
Various factors have led these countries to fragility or failure, including governmental mismanagement, authoritarianism, corruption, civil and ethnic conflicts, and many other variables. This study, however, focuses on external interventions that have contributed to this fragility or failure.
The Arab region has witnessed external interventions that date back decades, as well as more recent ones following the Arab Spring revolutions of 2011. These interventions can be classified into three main categories:
- International interventions: These include longstanding interventions like the American one, renewed interventions like the Russian one, and new relationships being built, such as with China.
- Regional interventions: These include longstanding interventions from Israel and Iran, new interventions from Turkey, and reformed interventions from Ethiopia.
- Arab interventions: Although not new, significant changes have occurred within this category. While historically Egypt, Iraq, and Syria were the main actors, new Arab actors from the Gulf states—Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the UAE—have emerged due to their financial and political surpluses, which have turned into military surpluses in their region. Egypt now plays a minimal role.
In the first two categories, the interventions aimed to achieve significant benefits at the expense of the Arab countries, often with profits outweighing the costs of intervention. These intervening countries were not concerned about the disruption of Arab states. Despite inter-regional communication regarding popular movements and political and social changes, identity barriers between regional and Arab countries greatly restrict the growth of interactive causes. For instance, the Iranian Islamic Revolution of 1979 did not significantly influence the Arab world, while the Egyptian revolution sparked widespread movements across Arab countries.
The Arab Spring revolutions, particularly the one in Egypt, ignited continuous movements and uprisings across the Arab world. The success of the Tunisian revolution alone was insufficient to convince other Arab nations to rise, but the Egyptian revolution triggered significant movements and uprisings.
Regional actors, concerned primarily with their interests, worked towards dismantling Arab countries and reformulating the region's geography according to their interests. The third type of intervention, the chaotic Arab intervention, saw new Arab actors pushing targeted Arab countries towards fragility or failure, whether deliberately or through arbitrary and ill-considered actions.
The forms of chaotic intervention varied, including support for militias and separatist groups, political movements, government operations against their people, disrupting movements that nearly reached power, directing aid for political goals, and direct military intervention. However, this article does not delve into the forms of intervention by new Arab actors in the Arab countries.
The analysis of Arab engagement in marginalizing or failing these countries is ongoing. One perspective suggests that new actors aim to ensure that old actors (Egypt, Iraq, and Syria) do not regain regional influence, which could diminish the new actors' roles and vested interests. Despite the benefits of intervention, the negative consequences must be less than the benefits. States must ensure that the negative consequences of neighboring countries' failure or fragility do not significantly affect them or spread internally.
The impact of fragile or failed states in the Arab world will likely spread more to neighboring Arab countries than to regional countries. Neighboring countries often bear significant economic and political burdens. According to a 2007 study by L.P. Chauvet and A. Hoeffler, the annual cost of a failed state is estimated at $276 billion, with $206 billion falling on neighboring countries.
New Arab actors bear the financial burden of their interference, the economic costs of neighboring countries' failure, and the costs imposed by the international community for post-reconstruction efforts.
In addition to financial burdens, the impact extends to identity and politics. A 2004 study by James Murdoch and Todd Sandler found that the presence of a failed neighboring state increases the likelihood of other states' failure, potentially pushing entire regions into backwardness. Instability, much like poverty, is an infectious phenomenon, with effects extending geographically.
Several hotspots of instability include:
- Fragile/failed Arab countries bordering one failed state: Iraq and Syria.
- Fragile/failed Arab countries bordering multiple failed states: Yemen, Somalia, Sudan, and Libya.
A significant global hotspot includes Sudan, South Sudan, Eritrea, Somalia, Ethiopia, Central Africa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Chad, Libya, Nigeria, Cameroon, Niger, Uganda, Mali, and Kenya. This cluster of failed neighboring states threatens the entire continent and international order.
If other variables are neutralized, affected Arab countries will likely experience political, economic, and social upheavals for at least a decade. This can be classified as follows:
- Category of explosive countries: previously listed.
- Group of countries vulnerable to critical impact:
- Egypt: Influenced by Libya, Sudan, and Chad, with a very high warning score of 88.4 points.
- Djibouti: Influenced by Somalia, Yemen, Ethiopia, and Eritrea, with a very high warning score of 85.1 points.
- Mauritania: Influenced by Mali, with a very high warning score of 90.1 points.
- Lebanon: Influenced by Syria and latent conflict with Israel, with a very high warning score of 85 point.
- Group of countries exposed to risk of impact:
- Jordan: Influenced by Iraq and Syria, with a high warning score of 75.9 points.
- Saudi Arabia: Influenced by Yemen, Iraq, and Eritrea, with a high warning score of 70.4 points.
- Algeria: Influenced by Libya, Niger, and Mali, with a high warning score of 75.4 points.
- Category of existing impact countries:
- Tunisia: Influenced by Libya, with a high warning score, but improving.
- Category of potential impact countries:
- Kuwait: Influenced by Iraq, but relatively stable with a score of 53.2 points.
- Oman: Influenced by Yemen, but stable with a score of 50 points.
This warning classification is serious when considering the variable of bad neighbors alone. Other variables cannot be neutralized entirely. International alliances and local wealth may delay or mitigate the impact of bad neighbors. Positive variables include:
- Continuing international and regional interventions.
- Chaotic and intrusive Arab approaches.
- Ongoing Arab popular movements calling for democratization and freedom.
- Interaction of internal variables such as low living standards, high authoritarianism, and identity conflicts.
- New variables like sharp drops in oil prices and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
- The possibility of regional wars.
In conclusion, the Arab region is poised for further chaos and instability, with new Arab actors bearing part of the responsibility for these repercussions.
Dr. ABD ALQADER NANAA