Failed States, Part 2: How Instability Spreads

In a follow-up to yesterday’s post, here’s a solid explainer from Foreign Policy on how instability, whether it be violence, drugs, or refugees, can spread from one country to another spreading the chaos. Abridged from the article linked above:

SUDAN
The violence in Darfur has created a ripple effect that is bleeding into Chad and the CAR. The Sudanese government has been accused of backing rebel groups in both countries, which has in turn created hundreds of thousands of additional refugees, and disorganized refugee camps vulnerable to the same types of marauding militias that have terrorized Darfur for the past four years.

SOMALIA
Somalia, hostage to factional fighting between warlords for more than 15 years, recently under the short-lived and allegedly stability Union of Islamic Courts and recently overthrown by the invasion of Ethiopian troops in favor of an interim government. But fighting continues and the region remains as unstable as it has in a decade. And refugees from the fighting have spilled into Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Kenya, destabilizing a large portion of the Horn of Africa. Prospects for the further development of Kenya and Uganda, and the stability of Ethiopia and Eritrea, are in jeopardy as long as Somalia continues to export instability

AFGHANISTAN
Fighting by a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan and in the lawless Northwest Frontier Province of Pakistan has the potential to spread instability across Central Asia. That’s stating the obvious. But what really has neighboring states such as Pakistan and Uzbekistan concerned is that Afghanistan’s record poppy yield and the drug trafficking routes used to export them will cut into the former USSR and bring with it crime, addiction, and HIV/AIDS.

The point of these three examples? Tackling hot spots across the globe isn’t just altruism. It’s common sense. Because places like the Sudan, Somalia, and Afghanistan will inevitably export their misery to other countries that affects the developed world too.