(U) In answering the question to what extent and how do failed and failing states facilitate terrorism, one would have to first assess if they if fact do promote terrorism. It is my perception that they do not, based on the many readings and briefings that I have done or attended. However, failing or failed states are contributing factors in some cases if the conditions are just right, but they are not the breeding ground that one might think. What failed and failing states do is create a perfect environment for terrorism to spawn and flourish like a petri dish and the agar with a biotoxin. Robert Rothberg is unsubstantially quoted as saying that factors such as demographic pressures, deprivation, corruption, organized crime, identity cleavages, and resource scarcity contribute to the growth of terrorism. He does state that “in the wilder more marginalized corner of failed states, terror can breed along with prevailing anarchy that naturally accompanies state breakdowns and failure.” Conversely, Troy Thomas, Steven Kiser, and William Casebeer give some slightly different contributing factors or inputs for the causes of terrorism by failed states which for the most part overlap those poised by Rothberg. They are Resources scarcity, demographic pressures, socio-economic deprivation, organized crime and corruption and identity cleavages. Rotberg espouses that states that are failing have usually neglected to maintain the social contract between the government and the populace regarding socio-economic issues and failure to protect. (U) Most failed states are caused by the lack of security, reliable access to food, a stable, growing economy, the rule of law, access to political process, health services, and education.
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The most important factor of all of these is that of security and followed by goods and services. I would also add that a crucial factor that may be buried in the definition, but not readily apparent is the rapidly emerging issue of lack of reliable access to water. Security is paramount, and if a state cannot protect itself externally and internally and provide adequate security for its citizens, it opens up the state to discord. The Responsibility to Protect is of such importance that the United Nations even recognized it as an important factor by enacting U.N. Resolution 1674 promulgated in 2006. (U) There are different methodologies and theories on how to describe the how failed states can contribute to the creation of an environment that serves as a breeding ground for terrorist activity. The “causation” theory that is hypothosized by Thomas, Casebeer, and Kiser seems the most plausible to me. As it takes the socio-environmental demographics previously listed and uses them as the input criteria or transition elements to obtain correlated outputs such as radical religious movements, ethnopolitical groups, warlords with militias, criminal networks, mercenary-warriors, vigilantes, kleptocracies, ideological groups. These outputs can be directly correlated with terrorist organizations for example; radical religious movements such as Syria’s failings contributed to the influx of al-Qaeda to support the rebels; ethnopolitical groups, like the Muslim Brotherhood; Criminal networks are the cartels and Shining Path; vigilantes like America’s Black Panthers; Kleptocracies like Ferdinand Marcos, and ideological groups like the Al-Shabaab and ISIL. (U) Another technique or theory is the systems method where you have common system characteristics that are applied in a cyclical fashion. The system characteristics include the import of energy, conversion of energy, exporting a product, cyclic processes, differentiation, negative entropy, dynamic homeostasis, equifinality, and feedback. A Negative entropy is the ability to fend off entropy and is a major factor as it displays the beginning of when the state of order starts to decay and degrade to chaos over time. The theory is that some or all of the common system characteristics are ingested and feed a sub-system support function that has four elements or stages that are; the gestation, the growth, the maturity, and the transformation stages. The gestational stage is where the roots of terrorism are formed, and they are to hardest to detect as it is simply a manifestation and not an actual group. Groups are formed in the second stage of growth. When the maturity stage is met, they are a full-fledged terrorist organization. The transformation stage is where a terrorist organization transitions from being a smaller terrorist group that transitions into a larger organization such
The most important factor of all of these is that of security and followed by goods and services. I would also add that a crucial factor that may be buried in the definition, but not readily apparent is the rapidly emerging issue of lack of reliable access to water. Security is paramount, and if a state cannot protect itself externally and internally and provide adequate security for its citizens, it opens up the state to discord. The Responsibility to Protect is of such importance that the United Nations even recognized it as an important factor by enacting U.N. Resolution 1674 promulgated in 2006. (U) There are different methodologies and theories on how to describe the how failed states can contribute to the creation of an environment that serves as a breeding ground for terrorist activity. The “causation” theory that is hypothosized by Thomas, Casebeer, and Kiser seems the most plausible to me. As it takes the socio-environmental demographics previously listed and uses them as the input criteria or transition elements to obtain correlated outputs such as radical religious movements, ethnopolitical groups, warlords with militias, criminal networks, mercenary-warriors, vigilantes, kleptocracies, ideological groups. These outputs can be directly correlated with terrorist organizations for example; radical religious movements such as Syria’s failings contributed to the influx of al-Qaeda to support the rebels; ethnopolitical groups, like the Muslim Brotherhood; Criminal networks are the cartels and Shining Path; vigilantes like America’s Black Panthers; Kleptocracies like Ferdinand Marcos, and ideological groups like the Al-Shabaab and ISIL. (U) Another technique or theory is the systems method where you have common system characteristics that are applied in a cyclical fashion. The system characteristics include the import of energy, conversion of energy, exporting a product, cyclic processes, differentiation, negative entropy, dynamic homeostasis, equifinality, and feedback. A Negative entropy is the ability to fend off entropy and is a major factor as it displays the beginning of when the state of order starts to decay and degrade to chaos over time. The theory is that some or all of the common system characteristics are ingested and feed a sub-system support function that has four elements or stages that are; the gestation, the growth, the maturity, and the transformation stages. The gestational stage is where the roots of terrorism are formed, and they are to hardest to detect as it is simply a manifestation and not an actual group. Groups are formed in the second stage of growth. When the maturity stage is met, they are a full-fledged terrorist organization. The transformation stage is where a terrorist organization transitions from being a smaller terrorist group that transitions into a larger organization such