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 on Jun 23, 2009 - 16 comments

Bruce Sterling, fresh from his online State of the World 2008 discussion (previously), delivers his succinct prognosis for the new year: 2009 Will Be a Year of Panic. At least it's an opportunity to say good-bye to the 20th century at last. (via)
posted by Doktor Zed on Jan 30, 2009 - 37 comments

About 2 billion people live in countries that are in danger of collapse. In the first annual Failed States Index, Foreign Policy and the Fund for Peace rank the countries about to go over the brink.
The Failed States Index Map and the Failed State Index.
posted by y2karl on Jul 29, 2005 - 25 comments

A distinction between “old” and “new” wars is vital. “Old wars” are wars between states where the aim is the military capture of territory and the decisive encounter is battle between armed forces. “New wars”, in contrast, take place in the context of failing states. They are wars fought by networks of state and non-state actors, where battles are rare and violence is directed mainly against civilians, and which are characterised by a new type of political economy that combines extremist politics and criminality... I argue in this article that the United States viewed its invasion of Iraq as an updated version of “old war” that made use of new technology. The US failure to understand the reality on the ground in Iraq and the tendency to impose its own view of what war should be like is immensely dangerous and carries the risk of being self-perpetuating. It does not have to be this way.
Iraq: the wrong war - Mary Kaldor writes of what was happening in pre-invasion Iraq, what happened thereafter and what the alternatives were. Well, there is always Exit strategy: Civil war. And on that, note this: Kurdish Officials Sanction Abductions in Kirkuk--a city from which, I am afraid, we will hear more and more as time goes by.
posted by y2karl on Jun 15, 2005 - 20 comments