Governments' collapse would pose global threat.

• Author: Book, Elizabeth G.
• Position: Security Beat

The collapse of national governments--even in distant, seemingly strategically-marginal countries--can pose enormous threats to U.S. security as well as global peace, said experts.

The Woodrow Wilson Center for International Studies convened a working group on understanding non-traditional threats to global security. Speakers at a recent group presentation were Marina Ottaway, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and Ambassador Richard Haass, of the policy and planning staff office at the State Department. Haass is State Secretary Colin Powell's designated coordinator for Afghanistan.

The working group concluded that al Qaeda gained strength over time because it found places--Afghanistan, and before that, Sudan--where it could operate freely in the absence of a traditional government.

The group warned that the number of unstable states that are unable to sustain themselves is growing. Countries such as Haiti, Somalia, Sudan, Liberia and Cambodia are characterized by their governments' inability to manage problems, control criminal elements, tackle social problems, deal with economic and environmental challenges, or resolve conflicts over borders and territory.

By creating havens in which there is no rule of law, these countries, in a defacto manner, permit the growth of transnational crime. As hosts to continuing conflicts over territory and the rights of religious and ethnic groups, they often become gross violators of human rights, and generate humanitarian and refugee crises with...