You are right to say that the term “failed state” conceals “many tangles,” but it is still a most useful and sobering term (“Where Life is Cheap and Talk is Loose,” March 19, 2011). As you quote Robert Gates, America’s defense secretary, fractured or failing states are “the main security challenge of our time.” But the annual ranking published by the Fund for Peace, a think-tank in Washington, DC, which you cite, does not cover only the usual suspects, such as Somalia, Chad, Sudan, and Zimbabwe. They just top the dismal ranking. The failed states index divides all countries into four groups: alert, warning, moderate, and sustainable. Worryingly, the first group includes Georgia and Iran. But the second group is even more worrying as it includes China, India, Russia, and Brazil, not to mention Bulgaria and Romania, both of which are members of the European Union. The third group includes America, too. The last group is again stuffed with the usual suspects, such as Denmark, Finland, Iceland, and Sweden. The full range is of great interest here as it signals where states may fail next. And Hobbesian anarchy is precisely what we may expect with the tightening grip of climate change. We will leave the many tangles in the term “failed state” at our peril.

Addendum (March 22, 2011)

For my sins, I could not but take a peek at the countries that had come into being after the breakdown of Yugoslavia. And the results only buttressed my support for the failed states index. Three of these countries made it into the “warning” part of the spectrum: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia/Kosovo (sic), and Macedonia. The first two are rather close to the “alert” status, too. Also, three countries ended up in the “moderate” part of the ranking order: Croatia, Montenegro, and Slovenia. Croatia is only a couple of countries short of the border between the two key parts of the spectrum, though. All this stands to reason, I reckon. The balkanization of former Yugoslavia is far from a finished business, and the Western Balkans are definitely a region to watch. Returning to the tightening grip of climate change, which is easy enough to foresee, the recent wars can offer a clear picture of the region’s future potential, as it were. Trouble, nothing but everlasting trouble.