Failing to consider failing states in U.S. national security policy

For my inaugural post here on D&S, I’m going to blatantly promote the blog I helped design over at the Stimson Center. Stimson’s Budgeting for Foreign Affairs and Defense project has unveiled The Will and the Wallet, an analytical blog examining the institutions, processes, and issues that drive the U.S. budget for foreign affairs and defense.

To kick things off, we’ve got a guest post by Dr. Pauline H. Baker, President of the Fund For Peace. Dr. Baker explains why failed states are a matter of U.S. national security–and even though they rose in prominence in the eyes of foreign policy experts after September 11, this doesn’t really translate to a comparative dollar amount coming out of the U.S.’s foreign affairs wallet.

Failed states are unstable states. Instability grows like mold on a bad peach–and breeds geopolitical conflict, violence, and often warfare and terrorist training. This is why paying attention to failed states–particularly those that rank high on the Fund For Peace’s well-known Failed States Index–should be much more than a foreign policy afterthought. On the contrary, it ought to be on the forefront of national security policymaking and, as a result, budgeting and spending.

Check out Dr. Baker’s post on the W2 for her in-depth look at this issue.