Assessing the Connections between State Failure, Insurgency, and Terrorism

Abstract

Until recently, failed states were not generally viewed as central to the international security agenda. In the post 9/11 world, however, international security experts are coming to the consensus that threats to international security may arise from areas within states or at boundaries between states that, for various reasons, are not controlled by state authority.¹ These states provide favourable demographic and social conditions, which are key factors in their conduciveness to terrorism or to the development of an insurgency. According to this view, the front lines of the war on terrorism and the increasingly difficult fight against insurgency lie within these failed states. The main argument as to the relevance and relationship between failed states, insurgency, and terrorism revolves around the fact that failed states are easier for terrorist organisations to penetrate and operate from and that they are easier for insurgencies to develop and thrive within. This logic emerges from the fact that failed states lack the ability to project power internally and have incompetent and corrupt law enforcement capacities. It has been long understood that they provide opportunities for terrorist groups to organise, train, generate revenue, and set up logistics and communications centres. In this regard, terrorist groups can essentially develop their own capabilities with little governmental interference.