What constitutes a “failed state” is a subject I’ve given a lot of thought and space, here and elsewhere. Not that I’m a great fan of governments, you understand; just so I can express myself cogently on the various subjects I address within the politics-and-government envelope. My working definition – a state that cannot maintain order or enforce its decrees within the zone it claims as its jurisdiction – serves reasonably well to cover cases such as Libya. But edge cases and gray zones abound. The especially ones are those nation-states that have permitted the law to run wild.
No government, however constituted, can enforce many thousands of laws at the same time. The amount of enforcement power required would boggle the mind. Yet virtually every nation-state on Earth, including those generally deemed to be “First World,” is in that exact position, owing either to the luxuriance of its laws or to its inability to enforce them. I have two consciousness-expanding cases in mind today.
Recently, Politico reported as follows:
MEXICO CITY — Mexico President Claudia Sheinbaum said Thursday she will propose constitutional reforms aimed at protecting Mexico’s sovereignty after U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration designated six Mexican drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations.
The U.S. designations have stirred worry in Mexico that it could be a preliminary step toward U.S. military intervention on Mexican territory in pursuit of the cartels, something Mexico sharply rejects.
“The Mexican people will not accept under any circumstances interventions, interference or any other act from abroad that could be harmful to the integrity, independence and sovereignty of the nation,” Sheinbaum said.
There’s a lot to unpack in the above. A state’s existence is premised on its functioning as a state: i.e., that it successfully promulgates laws and enforces them within its jurisdiction. But that is an inherently conditional exercise. A nation-state only exists at the sufferance of:
- Its people;
- Its neighbors.
Every definition ever applied to that weighty term sovereignty, the characteristic claimed by all states, must include those conditions. Just now, the integrity of Mexico as a state is seriously threatened by the criminal cartels that rampage essentially unchecked throughout its northern territories. In effect, Mexico is divided into the Government Zone and the Cartel Zone, no matter what Miss Sheinbaum may have to say about it.
But wait: there’s more! Mexico as a functioning national economy is utterly dependent on the United States. Funds from the U.S. flow into Mexico in unprecedented volume: many billions of dollars. Some of that is from cross-border trade; some is “foreign aid;” some is “remittances” from Mexican nationals who live and work north of the border; and some is revenue to the cartels. Without those funds, Mexico would collapse economically. There is no serious dispute of this, except perhaps from Mexican politicians.
So Miss Sheinbaum’s strident assertion of Mexico’s “integrity, independence and sovereignty” is pure swamp gas. Were America mood to turn against Mexico, it would fall regardless of the preferences of its political class. Nothing Mexico could do would change that, at least in the near term. Its political class should be aware of the precedent.
But note: Miss Sheinbaum’s concern arises from the power of the aforementioned cartels. Americans generally have no interest in policing Mexico apart from those cartels. Their power, and the support they receive within the zones they regard as “theirs,” has defied Mexican attempts to rein them in even minimally. In those areas, which are very extensive, they have a better claim to being “sovereign” than does the Mexican government.
Is Mexico a failed state?
The Year of Our Lord 2020 was an eventful one in several ways. The one I have in mind was the urban rioting in many American cities, largely propelled by the vicious “Black Lives Matter” movement. Lives were lost. There were billions of dollars in property damage. The afflicted cities appeared either unable or unwilling to quell the violence by force.
Consider Minneapolis, MN as a case study. The scope and intensity of the rioting there made clear that the law there was impotent. Neither did the state of Minnesota do anything to bring the rioters to heel. And of course, the federal government disdained to intervene until rather late in the destruction.
Three governments, all nominally pledged by law to the protection of innocent life and property, all failed to discharge their duties. True, order was largely restored some time afterward, but few of the rioters or those who provoked and organized their actions were ever brought to justice. Moreover, few of the victims of the violence were ever made whole, unless by their own efforts. Is that sufficient cause to proclaim any – or all – of the three relevant governments “failed?”
Yes, it’s an edge case, but the study of edge cases brings clarity to one’s understanding of an important concept.
A failed state is, in geopolitical terms, a no-man’s land: a place where there is no certainty of order. For the unwary, the probability of victimization is high. For governments, there is no entity with which efficacious intercourse is possible. Conversation and negotiation intended to bring about any desirable outcome is pointless, for in a failed state no one has, or is willing to exercise, sufficient power. Any force that might become interested in making itself sovereign in such a region would be concerned only with profit, loss, and the probability of success.
A highly instructive novel, Tom Kratman’s Countdown: H Hour, presents us with a fictional Philippines in which government is mainly a pretense. Large swathes of that nation have fallen de facto under the rule of criminal gangs or revolutionary movements. What happens in such a place is entirely determined by force: who has how much of it, who is willing to use it, and who is willing to dispute it.
But then, that’s the case even with “real” states, isn’t it?
The States of Earth exist in an anarchic relation to one another. Each has its own regional code of law, which might differ markedly from all the others. Despite several thrusts at the matter over the centuries, there is no “super-State” to enforce a uniform code of law over them all. More, they view one another as competitors in many different areas; their populations and institutions are often in sharp economic competition with one another. Thus, they are often at odds. They resolve important disputes among them through negotiation or warfare.
And so it must always be.
