1. When Anarchy Spills Across Borders
- Author:
- Edward Marks and Marshall Adair
- Publication Date:
- 11-2021
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- American Diplomacy
- Institution:
- American Diplomacy
- Abstract:
- Editor’s Note: American Diplomacy Journal asked several foreign policy commentators to address the significance of growing chaos in many parts of the world, as failed and failing states are increasingly unable to perform the fundamental functions of the sovereign nation-state. This is one of five articles looking at those concerns. The first two decades of the 21st century have seen explosive international terrorism, accelerating climate change, degradation of the oceans, expansion of illegal narcotics production and consumption, and a deadly worldwide pandemic. None of these respects national borders. All of them cause terrible human suffering, weaken national governments, undermine cultural integrity, and threaten peaceful relations between states. We have not seen such widespread anarchy in the West since the Thirty Years War in Europe half a millennium ago. Out of that experience came the development of the nation-state, an institution required to fulfill two functions: to project authority over its territory and peoples and to protect its national boundaries. Now, the legitimacy of the Westphalian nation-state system is being challenged, as is the current international system which is its descendent. National sovereignty was the foundation of the Westphalian system, and it is still sacrosanct in our international system. Governments that fail to protect their populations are nothing new in history, and for hundreds of years, the risks of intervening in the affairs of nation states generally outweighed the benefits. Today, however, what happens in one country – intentionally or by accident – increasingly affects immediate neighbors, more distant nations, continents and international human intercourse. This is destabilizing and can lead to international conflict. To mitigate that destabilization, the international community needs to become more active and adept at intervening with sovereign states to resolve anarchic pressures before they spill across national borders. The international community does, more than ever, have a “responsibility to protect.”
- Topic:
- Diplomacy, Sovereignty, Borders, State, and Responsibility to Protect (R2P)
- Political Geography:
- Global Focus