Forging a U.S. Policy Toward Fragile States

Inauguration of President Obama raised expectations of earlier and smarter intervention to protect civilians from dangers of fragile and failing states U.S. Army (David Bedard) Forging a U.S. Policy Toward Fragile States BY PAULINE H. BAKER Responding to 21st-century Security Challenges Except in high profile crisis situations, Washington rarely attempts to develop an integrated, government-wide strategy to prevent conflict and state failure, in which the National Security Council sets overall objectives and figures out how to bring relevant tools of influence to bear in the service of unified country strategies. More commonly, the United States engages individual fragile and failing states in a haphazard and “stove-piped” manner, pursuing separate bilateral diplomatic, aid, defense, trade, and financial relationships, each reflecting the institutional mandates and bureaucratic priorities of the relevant agencies. The United States needs to rationalize and upgrade its fragmented approach to monitor precarious states and develop new mechanisms to improve the chance that early warning actually triggers early action. — Stewart Patrick, “The U.S. Response to Precarious States: Tentative Progress and Remaining Obstacles to Coherence”1 Pauline H. Baker is President of The Fund for Peace, a nonprofit organization based in Washington, DC. PRISM 1, no. 2 FEATURES | 69 Of the many foreign policy challenges of lacks a comprehensive strategy and overall set the 21st century, one of the most complex and of objectives to prevent state failure and to unpredictable is the problem of fragile and fail- strengthen weak states. While many U.S. agen- ing states, which often leads to civil war, mass cies are engaged in activities related to state fragility, their efforts are typically fragmented into different priorities, goals, and frame- the National Security Council tucks 3 issues related to weak states under works. In sum, the terminology of conflict risk other categories, such as development, varies; the metrics of successful interventions are not uniform; and operational functions humanitarian affairs, stabilization, are usually divided into pre- and postconflict or democratization phases, with analysts rarely looking at the full life cycle of a conflict. Despite the fact that atrocities, economic decline, and destabilization weak and failing states were identified in the of other countries. The political era stemming 2002 U.S. National Security Strategy as a high from such challenges not only threatens civil- priority threat, the National Security Council ians who are in harm’s way, but also endangers (NSC) does not have a directorate dedicated international peace. Since the 1990s, such cri- to coordinating and supervising an integrated ses have become more prominent on the agen- approach to fragile states; rather, it tucks issues das of the major powers, intergovernmental related to weak states under other categories, institutions, humanitarian organizations, and such as development, humanitarian affairs, sta- vulnerable states themselves. Indeed, while the bilization, or democratization. This means the number of violent conflicts, particularly inter- focus is diluted, agencies are left to decide how state wars, declined after the end of the Cold to approach the challenges in their own ways, War, the duration and lethality of internal con- and no strategy or unified approach has been flicts are rising. Casualty figures are considerably developed. In essence, we make it up as we go higher when “war deaths” beyond the battlefield along, country by country and crisis by crisis. and deaths resulting from infrastructure destruc- Government specialists dealing with tion are included.2 While Iraq and Afghanistan such crises are scattered across different have dominated the public discourse on frag- agencies and departments. Early warning ile states, the problem is not confined to these analysts reside primarily in the Intelligence countries or their neighbors. Indeed, it is likely Community, although conflict analysis was that global trends in civil conflicts will present supposed to have been a function of the more, not fewer, challenges to international Department of State Office of the Coordinator peace and security, particularly in states where for Reconstruction and Stabilization (S/CRS). there is a history of instability, demographic Instead, its primary function has shifted pressures, rich mineral resources, questionable toward recruiting civilian government workers political legitimacy, a youth bulge, economic for deployment in conflict zones. As a result, inequality, factionalized elites, and deep-seated with no “institutional home” for developing group grievances. a U.S. strategy for fragile states, there is no Yet for all the talk of the critical impor- shared methodology, conceptual framework, tance of such challenges, the U.S. Government or analytical approach that integrates lessons 70 | FEATURES PRISM 1, no. 2 learned for interagency unity of effort. Most structures. Iraq is an example of this phenom- government efforts are instead directed toward enon, with the Sunni Awakening forces feel- operational functions, linking agencies once ing marginalized by the Shiite government, they are up and running in the field. which has failed to absorb some 100,000 State-building experts tend to be area spe- fighters as promised. cialists who reside in the Department of State Given the shortage of civilian person- and in some U.S. Agency for International nel knowledgeable and available to do state- Development (USAID) units (for example, building, the military has ended up shaping Conflict Mitigation and Management) as well both early warning and state-building policies as the Department of Defense (DOD). They as well as conducting security and reconstruc- focus on postconflict4 events, such as the tion operations on the ground. In many ways, Pentagon’s focus on military stabilization, or the military has stepped up to the plate and USAID’s emphasis on economic reconstruction. boldly taken on the most advanced work: Their efforts are valuable, and useful products investigating the drivers of violence, deploy- have resulted, such as the 2005 Essential Tasks ing to contain the violence, and implementing Matrix for postconflict reconstruction devel- state-building tasks to avoid a recurrence of oped by S/CRS in collaboration with six other violence. The Armed Forces have vastly more agencies. This is an operational tool that cat- resources and are better organized than other egorizes a range of tasks for practitioners on the agencies, and also have the institutionalized ground once the decision to intervene is made, planning and evaluation mechanisms those but it is no substitute for a comprehensive strat- agencies lack. egy designed to prevent or mitigate conflict in However, the results focus on warfighting fragile states. goals. The emphasis in COIN doctrine on pro- Counterinsurgency (COIN) and counter- tecting civilians has narrowed the gap between terrorism efforts present even more complex military and civilian needs on the ground, but challenges to U.S. policy in fragile states. it remains a gap nonetheless. This merging Military exigencies in Iraq and Afghanistan of functions makes it difficult to measure the have skewed perceptions on fragile states, results of state-building, establish benchmarks as operational imperatives have superseded of progress, or institutionalize interagency coor- strategic understanding of what must be done dination. The lack of consensus on the metrics for long-term state-building. Sometimes these of success, in turn, undermines public confi- goals are compatible, sometimes not. For dence in the state-building exercise.5 Except example, to subdue insurgencies, the United in rare cases of enlightened commanders and States has decided to train, equip, arm, and policymakers ordering integrated efforts in use local proxy forces or sectarian militias their particular areas of responsibility, the U.S. to address COIN needs. While their use is response to preventing conflict and building understandable as a short-term military tactic, functional states remains incoherent, stove- these militias could present a conflict risk of piped, and uncoordinated.6 destabilizing the host government in the long The current emphasis to remedy this term, becoming spoilers if they are not demo- situation is to encourage interagency coor- bilized or integrated into the state’s security dination. But the U.S. policy deficit on PRISM 1, no. 2 FEATURES | 71 fragile states is due to more than the lack of ❖ Create a Directorate for Conflict coordination, or a paucity or imbalance of Prevention and Sustainable Security resources. These are the symptoms, not the in the NSC with the appropriate staff- cause. Rather, the deficit originates froma failing, budget, and authority to develop ure to conceptualize the challenge correctly and and implement a comprehensive U.S. to develop a holistic strategy for dealing with strategy for fragile states. the phenomenon of state failure as a new class ❖ In consultation with Congress, estab- of conflict. Such an approach must be not only lish criteria for U.S. engagement, whole of government, but also whole of soci- or nonengagement, in fragile states, ety, or comprehensive, taking into account including diplomatic, informational, the entire range of actors who populate the military, and economic options that can be utilized throughout the full life cycle of a conflict for both prevention during

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