Published March 30, 2012 | By Felipe Umaña

The Congress for the People of Cyrenaica, which was held in eastern Libya’s largest city, Benghazi, attracted international attention after the group demanded greater autonomy from the central government in Tripoli and a reversion to the federal Libya that existed in the 1950s.

Cyrenaica — or Barqa, as it is referred to locally — stretches from the littoral town of Sirte (known famously as the birthplace of Muammar Gaddafi) to the eastern border with Egypt. The globally recognized representative of the Libyan people, the Tripoli-headquartered National Transitional Council (NTC), immediately rejected demands for greater self-government. Believing that more self-government may lead to the division of the Libyan state, the leader of the NTC, Mustafa Abdel Jalil, promised to defend the unity of Libya by force, if necessary.

Political representatives in Cyrenaica have no intention of backing down from their recent calls for more independence from Tripoli. The reasons behind this “final and irreversible” call for Cyrenaican autonomy are plentiful and deserve attention. However, rash actions and force of any kind can transform this issue into a catalyst for civil unrest and pit Tripoli and Benghazi against each other. Any further tensions could easily push this call for greater autonomy into a large-scale division of Libya.

As a country still in political flux, Libya may not be prepared to withstand the consequences of Cyrenaica’s unofficial bid for more self-government. In order for the country to maintain peace and order, both the central government and civic leaders in Cyrenaica will have approach political talks with transparency and open minds. If not, Libya could become Africa’s next Somalia.

Published March 19, 2012 | By Patricia Taft and Nate Haken

Since the Kony 2012 video about atrocities in Uganda went viral, there has been a backlash and counter-backlash over the campaign by Invisible Children to stop Joseph Kony and his rebels. Lost in the debate: the need to include the voices of Ugandans.

No doubt: The crimes of Joseph Kony are monstrous. And now, thanks to Invisible Children’s Kony 2012 campaign, millions more know about how he and his rag-tag forces destroyed communities and lives throughout northern Uganda and large swaths of East and Central Africa. The forcible conscription of children, the amputations, the sexual violence, and the pillaging of villages are Mr. Kony’s calling card. The predation began over 20 years ago. It continues to this day – though no longer in northern Uganda. It must be stopped.

Since the Kony 2012 internet video went viral, there has been a backlash and counter-backlash.

The backlash criticized Invisible Children for oversimplifying the issue. Certainly for those of us who have lived in Uganda and who have spent years working on these issues, it is difficult not to cringe at the missing nuance and the fast-and-loose treatment of history.

Published December 1, 2011 | By J. J. Messner and Michael Shank

With the excitement about Moammar Gadhafi’s downfall beginning to fade, Libya’s new management has begun governing and reconstructing the war-torn nation. Plenty of attention is being paid to the governance angle: Is the National Transitional Council a legitimate, representative body? When will elections be held? Is the new Libya going to be run by Islamists? Certainly these are important issues. Just as important, however, is the Libyan economy and how to get Libyans back to work.

The issue of employment is significant for a couple of reasons. First, though Gadhafi was a pariah who oppressed his people, these were not the only reasons Libyans eventually saw to his downfall. The Gadhafi regime had for decades deprived much of the population of economic opportunities, and the revolution was as much about economic disempowerment as it was about tyranny. Libya’s new leadership must recognize that it will be expected to deliver economic opportunities quickly.

Published October 26, 2011 | By Patricia Taft and Nate Haken

Obama’s deployment of 100 American military advisers to Uganda could help defeat Joseph Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army. But things could also go horribly wrong. That's what happened before. Still, the factors that led to past failure can be clearly identified – and hopefully avoided.

If President Obama’s deployment of 100 American military advisers to Uganda helps defeat Joseph Kony and the Lord’s Resistance Army in the ungoverned spaces of central Africa, it will be the fall of yet another 20th-century monster on Mr. Obama’s watch. But as similar initiatives have done for over 20 years, it could also go horribly wrong.

That’s what happened the last time the United States got involved in a campaign to get rid of Mr. Kony and the LRA – the failed 2008 “Operation Lightning Thunder.” But the fate of this next attempt isn’t sealed. The factors that led to the failure of Operation Lightening Thunder can be clearly identified, and should be carefully considered, particularly in regard to civilian protection.

August 19, 2011
By Colston Reid
The Fund for Peace Commentary

“The people want to change the regime.” It was the chant which started in Tunisia and quickly spread across the Arab World. But nowhere did these words resonate more strongly than in Egypt where angry protesters remained stoic in the face of increasingly brutal repression by government forces loyal to President Hosni Mubarak. For 18 days President Mubarak clung to the last vestiges of power before fading into history, not as a celebrated hero like Anwar al Sadat or Gamal Abdel Nasser before him, but as an impotent despot out of touch with the changing face of his nation.

Egypt has known no other leader for nearly thirty years. It then comes as no surprise that February’s protests, which led to Mubarak’s ouster, where fueled in large part by Egypt’s youth. Unemployed and disenfranchised these well-educated twenty-somethings were constantly reminded of the Egypt their grandparents knew: wealthy, strong, and the ideological cornerstone of the Arab World. The Egypt they know today is far different: poor, repressive and corrupt.

August 15, 2011
By Nate Haken
Foreign Policy Magazine

Let me be clear. We are not saying that Pakistan is a “failed state.” This index does not make that determination. Rather, it identifies pressures on states that put them at risk of failure, unless the state institutions are sufficiently professional, representative, and legitimate to deal effectively with those pressures.

The point of the Failed States Index is to provide a tool by which all stakeholders, including government, civil society, and the private sector, can clearly see which social, economic, and political/security indicators are exhibiting the most stress, so that everyone can work together for sustainable security and conflict-sensitive development over the long term. Every country in the world has a risk profile. Some states are under more pressure than others. And as the Minister points out in his letter, the state of Pakistan is under enormous pressure, which accounts for its ranking in our Index.

August 4, 2011
By Mustafa Babak
The Fund for Peace Commentary

Last December, I left Kabul and came to America to pursue higher education. While battling to adjust to a new environment and keep up with my studies, I found myself developing a daily routine of checking for news updates about my homeland, Afghanistan, at least once every day. As I followed the news from home very carefully, my thirst to hear of the latest updates about Afghanistan reminded me of the same questions I had asked myself over a decade ago: In the years since the ouster of the Taliban, what have the international community and the government done to significantly improve Afghanistan?

July 15, 2011
By Nate Haken
The Fund for Peace Commentary

I have a map of Uganda on my office wall. I put little red stickers on it whenever there are incidents of land conflict, clashes between armed groups, or cases of civil unrest. My map is getting cluttered and difficult to read.

Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni was re-elected by a landslide in February. Now, he has a very difficult job ahead of him. Certainly, the aging military man has shown himself to be a strong leader ever since he came to power in 1987. Early in his tenure, he was widely praised for guiding Uganda through a period of difficult economic reform. Though it took almost 20 years, he finally pushed the Lord’s Resistance Army out of Northern Uganda. Under Museveni, Uganda has been a leader in the fight against AIDS. The same is true with respect to the fight against terrorism, especially in Somalia.

Published July 8, 2011 | By J. J. Messner, Nate Haken, Joelle Burbank and Kendall Lawrence

As a result of the January 2011 referendum for independence, South Sudan formally declared its autonomy from the Republic of Sudan on July 9. Amid the celebration, there is growing recognition that from the start, the world’s newest country is guaranteed to face enormous pressures both from within its territory and from across the border. Testing its legitimacy, the Government of South Sudan will face the challenge of accommodating minority groups struggling for representation and power within the new structure. At the same time, the state will need to establish control over the entire territory without violating the human rights of those groups which are loathe to integrate politically and militarily. Border skirmishes between the SPLA and northern forces are likely, which could implicate affinity groups that straddle both countries, further complicating the internal pressures cited above.  Disputes with the Republic of Sudan over oil revenues could prove combustible, with implications for development and security in South Sudan. These political and security issues will occur in the context of ethnic tensions, poverty, drought, disease, population displacement, rudimentary infrastructure, and inadequate essential service delivery.  It will take much work and support for the Republic of South Sudan to succeed.

June 29, 2011
By Admiral Michael Mullen
The Failed States Index Launch Event

Transcript of speech presented to the Failed States Index 2011 Launch Event by Admiral Michael Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. on June 29, 2011.

June 29, 2011
By J. J. Messner
The Failed States Index Launch Event

Transcript of speech presented to the Failed States Index 2011 Launch Event by J. J. Messner, Senior Associate at The Fund for Peace, at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. on June 29, 2011.

June 20, 2011
By J. J. Messner
The Failed States Index

If the Failed States Index were a championship, then Somalia would be the undisputed four-time champion (or cellar-dweller, depending on how you look at it). In the seven years of the Failed States Index, Somalia has had the ignominious distinction of occupying the worst spot for the past four years straight. Despite having a relatively functional and pretty much autonomous ‘state’ in the north, Somaliland, the country as a whole still manages to score badly enough to make up for that glimmer of unrecognized hope. Worse still, the country is in no danger of losing its position anytime soon. A combination of widespread lawlessness, ineffective government, terrorism, insurgency, crime, abysmal development and a penchant for inconveniencing the rest of the world by taking their merchant vessels hostage has given Somalia a score that – much as they seem to try – neither Chad, Sudan, Zimbabwe nor the Democratic Republic of Congo can hope to match.

June 20, 2011
By Kristen Blandford, Annie Janus and Kendall Lawrence
The Failed States Index

1. Somalia

On this year’s Failed States Index, Somalia scored as the worst offender for Refugees and IDPs, Economic Decline, Human rights and Security Apparatus. The absence of a permanent national government for almost twenty years has led to ongoing civil violence, economic hardship, poor social conditions, and the displacement of several million Somali citizens. It has become increasingly difficult for international agencies to provide aid to Somalia in light of the recent troubles with piracy and hostility towards foreigners. An upsurge of civil violence in the southern part of the nation has created further destabilization and threatens any potential improvements to Somalia’s condition.

June 20, 2011
By J. J. Messner
The Failed States Index

The collapse of the Presidential Palace on Port-au-Prince after the January 2010 earthquake was sadly symbolic of the overall collapse of the Haitian state’s capacity to deal with that disaster, a lack of capacity that had become endemic across all aspects of Haiti’s governance. Though the exact figures are disputed, the earthquake claimed between 80,000 and 300,000 lives and displaced countless hundreds of thousands of Haitians. In the weeks and months following the disaster, scenes of human suffering poured out of Haiti, capturing the attention of the international community.

Though the 2010 earthquake clearly contributed significantly to Haiti’s poor score in this year’s Failed States Index, it should be understood that the country was hardly starting from a position of strength. Indeed, though Haiti shot to 5th on the 2011 Failed States Index, it ranked not much better in 11th position last year.

June 20, 2011
By J. J. Messner
The Failed States Index

It is less than three years since Russia attacked Georgia, ostensibly over the disputed regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. In the 2009 Failed States Index, Georgia ranked 33rd and into the Alert category. Though the country has definitely performed better in the past (ranking as well as 60th in 2006), the fact that it has rebounded to 47th in this year’s Index is somewhat remarkable. Even more remarkable, Georgia is this year’s most improved nation in the 2011 Failed States Index, having improved by 10 positions and by a score of 4.0.

As Georgia and Russia moved away from conflict, and as relations between the government in Tbilisi and its separatist regions stabilized, this reversal of hostilities — both internal and external — are reflected in the country’s scores. The Demographic Pressures and Group Grievance scores have improved by 0.4 points each; the other two social indicators (Refugees/IDPs and Brain Drain) have also marginally improved. Similarly, the External Intervention indicator, which reached a high point of 9.5 in 2009 as a result of the Russian incursion, has now settled back to 8.5—although this is not a good score by any means, it marks a significant improvement of 1.0 points in just 2 years.