Civil Wars & Transnational Threats: Mapping the Terrain, Assessing the Links Stewart Patrick Abstract: Among the primary strategic rationales for U.S. policy engagement in war-torn states has been the assumption that internal violence generates cross-border spillovers with negative consequences for U.S. and global security, among these transnational terrorism, organized crime, and infectious disease. Clos- er examination suggests that the connection between internal disorder and transnational threats is situa- tion-specific, contingent on an array of intervening factors and contextual conditions. Taken as a cohort, war-torn states are not the primary drivers of cross-border terrorism, crime, and epidemics, nor do they pose a first-tier, much less existential, threat to the United States. Of greater concern are relatively func- tional states that maintain certain trappings of sovereignty but are institutionally anemic, thanks to en- demic corruption and winner-take-all politics. Ultimately, the most important U.S. stakes in war-torn countries are moral and humanitarian: namely, the imperative of reducing suffering among fellow mem- bers of our species. For all the differences between the foreign policies of George W. Bush and Barack Obama, one theme that united them was the conviction that global se- curity was only as strong as its weakest link. One year after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Bush issued his first National Security Strategy, which fa- mously declared that “America is now threatened less by conquering states than we are by failing ones.”1 STEWART PATRICK is the James H. Binger Senior Fellow in Global Fifteen years later, in his last State of the Union ad- Governance and Director of the In- dress, Obama echoed his predecessor, declaring that ternational Institutions and Global the United States was endangered “less by evil empires Governance Program at the Coun- and more by failing states.”2 This was nowhere more cil on Foreign Relations. He is the apparent than in the turbulent Middle East, which author of The Sovereignty Wars: Rec- was likely to be mired in a painful, violent transition onciling America with the World (2017), for a generation or more, providing safe haven to the Weak Links: Fragile States, Global Threats, and International Security Islamic State (is) and other terrorist groups. (2011), and The Best Laid Plans: The In the decade and a half after 9/11, this broadly Origins of American Multilateralism shared thesis altered the U.S. national security state, and the Dawn of the Cold War (2009). shaping the doctrines, budgets, and activities of mul- © 2017 by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences doi:10.1162/DAED_a_00458 45 Civil Wars tiple agencies, including the Pentagon, Here, too, nuance is needed. Under certain & Trans- State Department, U.S. Agency for Inter- circumstances, countries experiencing or national Threats national Development (usaid), and intel- recovering from violence can contribute ligence community. As Robert Gates, who to transnational threats of concern to the served as secretary of defense under both United States, including terrorism, illegal Bush and Obama, explained in 2010: “Deal- trafficking, and infectious disease. More ing with fractured or failing states is . generally, civil wars can produce other neg- the main security challenge of our time.”3 ative “spillovers.” One is regional instabil- By the time Donald J. Trump was elect- ity. This is particularly likely to arise when ed president in November 2016, this view- internal conflicts draw in regional and even point had become firmly entrenched. One great powers.6 This is what occurred after of Trump’s first actions in office was to ban Syria began to implode in 2011, helping to immigration from seven Muslim-majority destabilize its immediate neighborhood. countries embroiled in violence, as well Another common spillover is the uncon- as to suspend refugee admissions, on the trolled flow of refugees. In 2015, great num- grounds that both posed grave threats to bers of asylum seekers and migrants from U.S. national security.4 Syria, Somalia, Afghanistan, and other con- At times, the U.S. government has de- flict zones risked the treacherous journey scribed the dangers posed by fragile states across the Mediterranean, often by dinghy, in lurid prose, as in this statement from testing the unity of the European Union. usaid: Closer to Syria, the same exodus placed When development and governance fail in a extraordinary social, economic, and polit- country, the consequences engulf entire re- ical strains on Lebanon and Jordan, where, gions and leap around the world. Terrorism, by early 2017, Syrian refugees accounted for political violence, civil wars, organized crime, approximately 25 percent and 10 percent of the total national population in those coun- drug trafficking, infectious diseases, environ- 7 mental crises, refugee flows, and mass migra- tries, respectively. One lesson is that hu- tion cascade across the borders of weak states manitarian crises can have profound polit- more destructively than ever before.5 ical consequences, not only for the nation at war, but also for the countries that end Hindsight suggests that this diagnosis up hosting them.8 is too sweeping and, as such, is an uncer- At the same time, the spillover risks that tain guide to policy. One problem lies in contemporary civil wars pose–particular- the catch-all category of “weak and fail- ly to the United States–should be kept in ing” (or “fragile”) states, which encom- perspective. For one thing, the connec- passes a spectrum of some fifty poorly per- tion between internal disorder and trans- forming countries, most in the developing national threats is situation-specific and world. Today, they range from corrupt but contingent on an array of intervening fac- stable nations like Kenya to completely col- tors and contextual conditions.9 For an- lapsed polities like Somalia, right next door. other, none of the transnational dangers Moreover, many countries that could plau- that arise from civil wars pose an existen- sibly be called fragile–like Burundi–have tial threat to the United States. They are little relevance to U.S. or broader global se- thus hardly comparable to the risks of a po- curity, given their marginal connection to tential military clash with a nuclear-armed the most worrisome transnational threats. adversary like Russia or China. Indeed, But what of that subset of states mired only rarely do such spillovers rise to the in civil war, the subject of this volume? top tier of U.S. national security priorities. 46 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences The human suffering created by internal es, shared its predecessor’s certitude that Stewart violent conflict is real, horrific, and unjust. failed, collapsed, and war-torn states played Patrick But it is borne overwhelmingly by the un- an integral, even indispensable, role for ter- fortunate citizens of war-torn states and rorist networks. This was particularly true their immediate neighbors. A case in point when it came to the global salafi jihad, an is the Democratic Republic of the Congo. extremist, transnational movement com- Between 1996 and 2008, its civil war may prising a small minority of Sunni Muslims have taken more than five million lives and dedicated to (re)creating an Islamic caliph- destabilized central Africa, but it had lit- ate, and of which Al Qaeda and the Islam- tle material impact on the United States.10 ic State are the most prominent exemplars. It is true that the world has become in- In 2011, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, terconnected in unprecedented ways. Still, who had previously warned of “the chaos many war-torn states have much in common that flows from failed states,” advocated with Vegas: what happens there often stays nato intervention into Libya’s civil war to there.11 The challenge for U.S. policy-makers prevent that country from becoming anoth- is to think more clearly about the potential er Somalia, spawning mayhem that crested linkages between upheaval abroad and inse- its borders.13 curity at home, and to consider more hon- This view was reinforced by the spread estly the rationales for becoming involved in of new Al Qaeda and Islamic State “fran- others’ civil wars. The most powerful argu- chises” in insecure, turbulent, or war- ment for intervening in internal conflicts is torn countries like Libya, Mali, Nigeria, often moral and humanitarian, rather than and Yemen, and, of course, by the emer- interest-based and strategic. gence of the Islamic “State” in war-torn Of the many potential spillovers from Syria and Iraq. With bipartisan support in war-torn states, the one that has seized the Congress, the Obama administration ele- imagination of U.S. policy-makers and in- vated the elimination of terrorist safe ha- dependent analysts alike is the threat of vens to a centerpiece of U.S. counterter- transnational terrorism. The object les- rorism efforts.14 This full-spectrum ap- son remains the searing experience of 9/11, proach included building the capacity of when the Al Qaeda network, based in Af- vulnerable partners (like Mali) to under- ghanistan, a desperately poor country then take counterterrorism operations; expand- already at war for more than two decades, ing drone strikes to assassinate suspect- orchestrated the most devastating foreign ed terrorists in “ungoverned areas” (like attack on U.S. territory in American his- Pakistan’s tribal belt); providing logisti- tory. Osama Bin Laden’s ability, from his cal support for intervention by allies (like remote mountain redoubt, to grievously Saudi Arabia) in civil wars in other coun- injure the world’s most powerful nation tries (like Yemen); deploying U.S. special spurred the Bush administration to reas- forces to advise friendly governments bat- sess the main perils to U.S.