The Criminal State vs. Failed States

Via CT Blog (Douglas Farah) -

Today's Washington Post has an interesting article on how the North Korean military is now the primary extractive body of the North Korean establishment, and is, in fact, relatively efficient at extracting natural resources to sell to China and elsewhere.

It is an important piece because it highlights a much broader reality that we have been slow to come to grips with. In almost any index of failed states, North Korea ranks fairly high. But in reality it is not a failed state at all. It retains the capacity to efficiently extract what it (the state) needs for survival. It may not provide basic necessities such as fuel, food, clothing, education, medical service or sewage, but it is efficient at what it sets out to do. And this economic extractive capacity is the key to perpetrating the regimes in power.

The primary danger of these criminal-extractive states (such as Liberia under Charles Taylor, Zimbabwe under Mugabe, Equatorial Guinea under the Obiang clan) is that they offer criminal and terrorist organizations ideal circumstances in which to operate. In fact, these overlapping networks are essential to the survival of the state as criminal syndicate.

Because these states rely on criminal networks for their economic survival (North Korea on counterfeit currency, illicit nuclear technology sales etc.; Charles Taylor on blood diamonds), and terrorist organizations increasingly rely on criminal organizations and activities for funding and facilitation, these states become host organisms to criminal and terrorist parasites.

In fact, these criminal states rely on criminal/terrorist networks to provide the illicit funds that make them viable. My full blog is here.