Weak States and the Savage Wars of Peace (original) (raw)

What drives the idea of state failure and how did it first gain traction? As a contemporary geopolitical concept, it seems out of keeping with the times. During the Cold War, Western strategists never worried much about dysfunctional states. Rather, they were gripped by fears of “strong, internally stable governments”, that is, states tending to be led by “one-party Communist totalitarian governments”. Nightmare scenarios for Washington were about well‑ordered, disciplined and autonomous nations—not weak and troubled ones. Yet a longer view reveals old, deep-running currents in the Western imaginary of non-Western places. Narratives of primordial savagery and irrationality go back to the Conquistadors of Latin America in the sixteenth century and to Europe’s scrambles for Africa and Afghanistan in the nineteenth century. Imperial glory and material gain were the impulses of domination, but these had to be justified by more noble intentions, such as ending disorder among the “lesser breeds without the law.” Hence, it was “the White Man’s burden”, as Kipling famously expressed it, to pursue “the savage wars of peace”.

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