[Madalene O'Donnell is guest blogging for Victoria Holt who is currently on vacation] 

The 2006 US National Security Strategy argues that “[t]he goal of our statecraft is to help create a world of democratic, well-governed states that can meet the needs of their citizens and conduct themselves responsibly in the international system.”  Who could disagree?  The post-9/11 strategy made a similar point.  “The events of September 11, 2001,” it argued, “taught us that weak states, like Afghanistan, can pose as great a danger to our national interests as strong states.” 

But a quick look at current crises in the Middle East and Africa today suggest that we haven’t really learned this lesson at all.  Both through errors of omission and commission, we are missing opportunities to help in the emergence of well-governed states that can make us and local populations more secure.

Take Somalia as a case in point.  As the Economist argued this week, the US has itself partly to blame for the current crisis in which the Council of Islamic Courts (CIC) swept aside US-financed warlords, gaining control of Mogadishu and surrounding towns.  While the US pursued a policy of distributing guns to warlords to help track down individual al-Qaeda fugitives, the alarmed local population threw in its lot with the CIC.   As the Economist argued, “exhausted people are finding mullah-rule better than anarchy and extortion.”  US interests are best served by helping, rather than frustrating, local aspirations for better governance which, in turn, will help to reduce “ungoverned spaces” that US military strategists frequently link to terrorist havens. 

Similarly, as Fareed Zakaria argued, why were US policymakers caught by surprise when Hamas rode into office on promises of clean government?  Why wasn’t more pressure brought to bear to meet public aspirations for good governance under Arafat’s Fatah Movement?  Yes, statebuilding is a long and painstaking process.  But if it could have helped in some way to prevent the horrific tragedy unfolding across the region today, what price would have been too high?  

The tragedy, however, is that while state institutions can only be built up slowly, they can be gutted rather quickly (this brings us to the errors of commission).  US officials who have served in Iraq know this better than most.  The US-led “deBaathification” policy dismantled state security forces with little regard to what or who would fill this vacuum.   As violence spiraled out of control, the US reversed this policy but the damage was done.  It will take many years to rebuild and, as the New York Times has reported, the US initially provided little more than a dozen advisors to undertake this mammoth task. 

Meanwhile, back in Washington, Congress has gutted a request to expand US-wide assistance to fragile states under the Department of State’s Reconstruction and Stabilization Office.  It also now threatens to cut-off funding for UN-led efforts as well (which may be even more cost-effective, according to the RAND study cited in previous posts).  We need to act on this lesson of September 11:  “ungoverned spaces” matter not only to local populations but to US national security.  If we don’t listen to local cries for assistance in filling these vacuums, someone else will. 

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