[...] Frequent commentor Elizabeth noted on Chirol’s post last week about FP’s Failed States Index There’s a reason why some of us wouldn’t attempt to make such a index, knowing how foolish and vain it would be to assume we could quantify chaos and anarchy on a global scale and make comparisons. [...]

Marquer,

May want to do some more research on the US. The Dow just hit its highest ever as the economy seeks to grow, and the rest of your stuff seems politically motavated. Massive movement of refugees?

I think there is a difference between flooding refuges and refuges caused by war and civil strife. Plus while the move out of New Oreleans was massive it was for only parts of one city. Not whole regions like or Afghanistan or Sudan. Also,
The 90s bubble was bulit on hype while this is an all around growth in all sectors.

Other points like “Criminalisation and delegitimisation of the state,” calling the governments “kleptocracy” and comparing our growing economy to Weimar show extremeism.

Snow,

I know where! Vatican City! Many anti-Catholics in the 1800s feared a Catholic Army would take over America and the world. I say why risk it? Convert and move now!

ohh..i missed eq. guinea’s 2.0 for exporting refugee.
i am curious about how this is calculated, NK scored a decent 6.0.
perhaps no one is ‘displaced’ involuntarily in NK, everyone who left are voluntary departure?

The FP Failed States Index, which comes out every year, is not exactly the most robust index of its kind. For example, the groupings (Red – Critical, Orange – In Danger, Yellow – Borderline) are completely arbitrary: they just take the bottom 20, the next 20 and the next next 20 and violá! Also, I have some problems with the Conflict Assessment System Tool (CAST), which is based on trawling and ranking appearances in the media. We here at Coming Anarchy know there is all kinds of strife not covered by the media. There is obviously an unproportional amount of news out there on Sudan in the past year, hence it’s drop in the charts.

Regardless, developing a faiiled states index is an extremely difficult task, one that you don’t really appreciate until you try to create your own.

marquer, get a grip. The US is far from perfect, but are you somehow claiming that the US is equivalent to such failed states as Congo, Sudan, Liberia?

No, of course not.

What I am suggesting is that triumphalist rhetoric with regard to the US and its prospects is grossly misplaced. Americans still believe that they are citizens of a superpower. They certainly used to be. They are not now.

Superpowers are not broke. This country is dead flat broke, financially overextended to a degree which should alarm any informed citizen. During my lifetime, and I’m not that old, we have seen America go from being the planet’s biggest and most reputable creditor nation to being its most irresponsible and wastrel debtor.

Superpowers can exercise their will militarily when necessary, without fear that someone will choke their oil jugular or shut off the E-Z Credit on which the continuation of the entire enterprise is perilously dependent. This country can not do that any longer, either. We cannot even deal plausibly and efficaciously with the barking-mad Ahmadinejad without panic at the thought of $5 gasoline.

I am halfway through Empire Wilderness, and the themes of imperial overstretch and of America as a failed state in the making suffuse large reaches of the book. Just as with the original Coming Anarchy essay, I endorse Kaplan’s analysis and agree with his assessment of the risks.

As for Catholicgauze, well, the less said the better about anyone who can and does say, with a straight face, of the contemporary US economy, that “this is an all around growth in all sectors.” The US manufacturing sector in particular is undergoing the largest contraction in employment and in production capability in modern history. Icons of industry such as General Motors—General Freaking Motors!—are teetering on the verge of Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

During the 1940s, the assembly lines of GM and other firms in its cohort built the tanks and aircraft which beat back fascism. Best hope that no such challenge ever again arises, because America no longer has the industrial base with which to perform such feats. And the foundational businesses which underlaid the GMs and Fords, such as American machine tool companies, are atrophied as well.

Returning to the earlier theme, genuine superpowers are able to build their own weaponry independently and indigenously. Can the United States do that today? In a pig’s eye. There have been several times in recent years when the Pentagon’s stock of conventional cruise missiles has bottomed out, and crash production has been required. Yet in a future circumstance, that may not be possible.

Read up on Magnequench: a US firm which originated and built, in the US, with US employees, a critical technology for guided weapons. Surely we would have the sense to retain such a strategic necessity under domestic control, yes?

No. Magnequench was bought out by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army via a shadow intermediary. After swearing piously to keep the lines here open, they quietly bundled up the factory tooling down to the handles on the restroom doors and moved it to the PRC, lock stock and barrel. (A colloquialism which derives from firearms manufacture, ironically enough.)

hmm…the map is more sloppy than i thought.
kashmir, cyprus, western sahara, to name but a few.

if it is actual control area. aksai chin, cyrpus all wrong
if for political correctness, w sahara is wrong

conspiracy?

p.s. solomo islands was in a big mess since a few years ago. but i couldn’t find its name in the list.

Younghusband- There’s a reason why some of us wouldn’t attempt to make such a index, knowing how foolish and vain it would be to assume we could quantify chaos and anarchy on a global scale and make comparisons. At least, I would assume it would take a concerted effort of having people live in the countries, with set indicators at the beginning of the year, and having them meet quarterly to discuss how their countries are doing on those factors in a 1-week conference. They didn’t even do this: it’s the hubris that is annoying more than the failure, though the failure is on such a scale that it does appear they didn’t even convene, say, a group of people who’d been living in the countries to ask them what they thought of the situation.

The United STATES? BAd disaster and inane response do not make a failed state. It is China that fits the bill on this one, and the implications are global. Sitting on an ongoing ecological disaster, 350,000,000 million people are moving to the Eastern cities. The recent crackdowns on dissent are gaining in intensity, the gap between haves and have nots continues to grow.

The herald economic growth is unsustainable and the first signs of decline are begininng to show.
There is no outlet for grievances, a pressure cooker building to the explosion.
An alternative exists which terrifies Beijing, in Taiwan the citizens can vote and determine who leads them. This is a huge threat to Beijing. Chinese citizens are now aware of an alternative!
The internet and IT is the external threat ripping at the governments authority.

The failure of China and the damage to its 5000 years of civilazation would be an enourmous loss. But the damage to the world economic system would be devastating! Sorry for the incoherent post, just got off the Beijing to Yantai trainand rode standing room so I have not sit down or slept in 24 hours.

The United STATES? BAd disaster and inane response do not make a failed state. It is China that fits the bill on this one, and the implications are global.

I’m entirely ready to discuss China as a potentially failed state in the making. In fact, it’s hard to find large countries these days which do not qualify on that count!

The failure of China and the damage to its 5000 years of civilazation would be an enourmous loss. But the damage to the world economic system would be devastating! Sorry for the incoherent post, just got off the Beijing to Yantai trainand rode standing room so I have not sit down or slept in 24 hours.

Would be fascinated to hear more of your impressions once you are rested.

If China goes down, the US economy will do badly out of the bargain. We are addicted to inflows of cheap foreign capital to subsidize our bad habits. And much of that is theirs.