Tony Blair, the prime minister, is an ambitious man. Courageously and rightly, he is determined to support the US effort to end the terrorist threat from Afghanistan. But he wishes to achieve far more.
As Mr Blair told the Labour party in his conference speech last week, "I believe this is a fight for freedom . . . not only in the narrow sense of personal liberty but in the broader sense of each individual having the economic and social freedom to develop their potential to the full . . . The starving, the wretched, the dispossessed, the ignorant, those living in want and squalor from the deserts of Northern Africa to the slums of Gaza to the mountain ranges of Afghanistan: they too are our cause."* Mr Blair views today's events as a chance to reorder the world. Yet even he may not realise how radical that reordering must be. The aim entails a transformation in our approach to national sovereignty - the building block of today's world.
Afghanistan is, after all, just an extreme version of the failed state. After decades of war, the regime fails to provide the elementary conditions for secure existence, let alone of economic development. Yet Afghanistan is not unique. Because of its radical Islamist ideology, it merely poses a bigger threat to the rest of the world. Any failing state is a cradle of disease, source of refugees, haven for criminals or provider of hard drugs. Bad though it is for the rest of the world, such a state is even worse for its own people, reduced to lives described by the English political philosopher, Thomas Hobbes, as "nasty, brutish and short".
A few years ago, Robert Cooper, a British diplomat, presciently identified the challenge posed by what he called the "pre-modern world, the pre-state, post-imperial chaos".** Mr Cooper listed Afghanistan in this category. "The existence of such a zone of chaos is nothing new," he remarked, "but previously such areas, precisely because of their chaos, were isolated from the rest of the world. Not so today . . . If they become too dangerous for the established states to tolerate, it is possible to imagine a defensive imperialism. If non-state actors, notably drug, crime or terrorist syndicates take to using non-state (that is pre-modern) bases for attacks on the more orderly parts of the world, then the organised states may eventually have to respond."
Today, Mr Blair is assisting the Americans to do just that in Afghanistan. The job of replacing the Taliban will be extraordinarily difficult. But Mr Blair wants to do far more. He wishes, in effect, to undo the damage done by the failure of states throughout the world. If one is to understand what this means, it is necessary to analyse why states fail.
In a brilliant new book, William Easterly, of the World Bank, provides the answer.*** It lies in a vicious circle of political disorder, desperate poverty, civil conflict and back to political disorder. This vicious circle is to be contrasted with the virtuous circle that has led to the prosperity, stability and democracy of today's most advanced states. Uneasily poised between these two alternative futures lie the majority of the world's countries.
The story of failures is one of an accumulation of bad incentives. The country often started its independent history as an arbitrary assemblage of ethnic groups. It is desperately poor. Disease is endemic and debilitating. The economy is locked into low-skill, low-return activities and growth in income per head is slow, perhaps even negative.
Those in power use their positions for personal enrichment. Corruption is pervasive. There is neither an independent judiciary nor an honest police force. Generals are greedy politicians, not disinterested soldiers. Political competition among interest groups is intense. The result is inefficient economic policies aimed at favouring particular groups. High fiscal deficits, inflation, costly protection against imports and repression of the financial system are the debilitating outcome.
In a poor country whose state has limited resources and commands little loyalty, interest group competition readily turns into civil war. Alternatively, criminal organisations operate freely. At the limit, the government's monopoly of organised violence - a precondition for civilised life - collapses.
Europe must have looked like this during the dark ages. Unfortunately, this, or something like it, is the state of a sizeable part of the globe. Still more tragically, a country stuck in this trap finds it frighteningly difficult to escape. Europe's escape took many centuries.
Afghanistan is an example of such a failed state: it is divided into mutually suspicious tribal groupings; it is desperately poor; war has become a way of life; the ruling regime funds itself with money from export of hard drugs; and Osama bin Laden is the godfather.
If Mr Blair's words about a new world order are to be more than vacuous blather, he has to have a plan for turning these vicious spirals into virtuous ones. Yet the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund cannot rescue such broken Humpty Dumptys. These institutions cannot provide what is missing: a powerful, respected and benevolent state. Yet, as Mr Easterly argues, the starting point has to be with the government. Without a working and at least modestly benevolent state, there can be no stability and no development.
If a failed state is to be rescued, the essential parts of honest government - above all the coercive apparatus - must be provided from outside. This is what the west is doing today in the former Yugoslavia. To tackle the challenge of the failed state, what is needed is not pious aspirations but an honest and organised coercive force.
There are two reasons why the idea will cause horror: imperialism remains suspect; and the effort will be costly. Yet these objections can be met. Some form of United Nations temporary protectorate can surely be created. The cost of action to save failed states is also less than that of doing nothing. Above all, it is clear that there can be neither justice nor elementary international order if substantial parts of the globe lack responsible government. To do nothing is to choose disorder. The question is: are Mr Blair and his peers, above all in the US, prepared to will the alternative?
* http://www.labour.org.uk; **The Postmodern State and the World Order (London: Demos and the Foreign Policy Centre, 1996, 2000); *** The Elusive Quest for Growth (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 2001).
martin.wolf at ft.com -- Yoshie
* Calendar of Anti-War Events in Columbus: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html> * Anti-War Activist Resources: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/activist.html> * Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osu.edu/students/CJP/>