Doom + Gloom

June 23, 2009 4:55 AM

Failed States Index 2009 is a collaboration between Foreign Policy and The Fund for Peace. There is an interactive map and a series of related articles including brief prognostics of future danger ahead. If you think its bad now, wait until climate change kicks in.
posted by adamvasco (16 comments total)

Somalia was too failed even for al Qaeda.

BURN!!!
posted by Mastercheddaar at 6:06 AM on June 23, 2009 [4 favorites]

Hmm, well, I've always wanted to move to New Zealand, maybe I should start making plans...
posted by zarah at 6:29 AM on June 23, 2009

Someone should tell Foreign Policy's mapmakers that Newfoundland joined Canada sixty years ago.
posted by GhostintheMachine at 7:44 AM on June 23, 2009 [3 favorites]

I'm a little disappointed in the US's performance, yet another graph which shows that the US is now falling behind places like India and China. I mean heck, even Sudan, and Iraq are beating us. Yet more evidence of how Barack Obama is dooming America.
posted by Nanukthedog at 7:44 AM on June 23, 2009

We'll be ok here in the UK - global warming will mean we can, finally, produce some decent red wine and maybe even grow some ince olive and citrus trees.

If the reservoirs start to dry out and we need rain, we need only schedule a 5 day test match at Lord's or appeal to the nation to hold a national barbeque picnic day.

We just about have the remnants of a navy to defend our borders from the hordes of dirty Frenchmen and beach lounger grabbing Germans who will, no doubt, want to come and live here.

Rising sea levels will flood parts of Norfolk, which means generations of inbreds will finally leave their ancestral homes and move to areas where they can find the infusion of new genetic material so badly needed.

I also remain hopeful that by the time global warming really kicks in - say by 2050 - we may also have found a solution for air conditioning the tube.

In fact, I'm so confident I'm going to start up my hummer and take it for a drive right now. Somewhere beautiful. And quiet.
posted by MuffinMan at 7:58 AM on June 23, 2009 [3 favorites]

They've got Guyana and Suriname mixed up on the map, as well.
posted by dowcrag at 8:24 AM on June 23, 2009

They seem to have weird stray chunks of white all over the place on the map. Not only Newfoundland, but most of the Antilles, a chunk of Tierra del Fuego, and what looks like most of the Delmarva Peninsula as well.
posted by blucevalo at 8:37 AM on June 23, 2009

Well, to be fair, Delmarva is pretty much one big terra incognita, save for the occasional beach town Washingtonians decide is worth a getaway.

(But I think that whitish bit is actually the Outer Banks.)
posted by kittyprecious at 9:33 AM on June 23, 2009

I also remain hopeful that by the time global warming really kicks in - say by 2050 - we may also have found a solution for air conditioning the tube.

I was nodding in agreement throughout your post, but now you're just being silly.
posted by Infinite Jest at 9:34 AM on June 23, 2009 [1 favorite]

Failed states? Why isn't Alaska on the list?
posted by msalt at 9:43 AM on June 23, 2009

Previously and previously,
In the widening gyre,
the falconer can not see the search window...
etc. etc.....blah blah woof woof
...vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
slouches towards Bethlehem
for its triple posting ?
posted by y2karl at 9:51 AM on June 23, 2009 [1 favorite]

Considering the previous ones were for the 2005 and 2007 listing, this is not a duplicate post. Read the link.
posted by mephron at 11:32 AM on June 23, 2009

Somalia was too failed even for al Qaeda.

BURN!!!

But not for Libertarians!
posted by Saxon Kane at 11:45 AM on June 23, 2009

I see this doesn't take into account the inevitable zombie outbreak.

I can see some nukes flying over water rights in south Asia though.
posted by Smedleyman at 12:55 PM on June 23, 2009

I'm absolutely shattered at the minute, so I can't respond to this properly now. If I remember I'll do it tomorrow. There's quite a lot of criticism of the failed states concept, and even more criticism of the water wars theory. You'll notice that they cite the Indo-Pakistani water issue as an example of cooperation and then immediately suggest that it'll turn to war in the future. It seems based on traditional security logic, not surprising considering it is from FP.

But anyway, I'm far too tired now to formulate sentences.
posted by knapah at 4:19 PM on June 23, 2009

Rising sea levels will flood parts of Norfolk, which means generations of inbreds will finally leave their ancestral homes and move to areas where they can find the infusion of new genetic material so badly needed.

[NOT WEBBED-TOEIST]
posted by atrazine at 3:35 AM on June 24, 2009