RAND Review
New World Disorder
Different Types of Ungoverned Territories Warrant Different Responses
By Angel Rabasa
Angel Rabasa is a RAND senior policy analyst who, from 1976 through 1998, held many U.S. diplomatic and defense positions throughout Latin America, Europe, and Asia.
Ungoverned territories have become more common since the end of the Cold War, ranging from the Pakistani-Afghan border to the Sulawesi-Mindanao arc, from East Africa to the North Caucasus to Central America. Ungoverned territories pose challenges to U.S. national security as breeding grounds for terrorism and criminal activities and as launching pads for attacks against the United States and Western interests.
Given the pervasiveness of ungoverned territories throughout the world, U.S. officials should treat the phenomenon as a distinct category of security problems that requires unique policies and strategies rather than as a symptom of protracted violence, crime, and poverty. To develop strategies to address the phenomenon, we at RAND specified variables for identifying ungoverned territories and for measuring their conduciveness to a terrorist presence. We then distinguished among three types of ungoverned territories, suggesting different priorities for each type.
Eight Cases
An ungoverned territory is an area in which a state faces significant challenges in establishing control. Ungoverned territories can be failed or failing states, poorly controlled land or maritime borders, or areas within otherwise viable states where the central government’s authority does not extend. These territories can also extend to airspace, such as air routes that drug smugglers use to transport illegal drugs.
We studied eight presently ungoverned territories: the Pakistani-Afghan border region, parts of the Arabian Peninsula, the Sulawesi-Mindanao arc straddling Indonesia and the Philippines in Southeast Asia, the East African corridor from Sudan and the Horn of Africa to Mozambique and Zimbabwe, West Africa from Nigeria westward, the North Caucasus region of Russia, the Colombian-Venezuelan border, and the Guatemala-Chiapas (Mexico) border. These territories are distributed across four continents and include both Muslim and non-Muslim regions.
These territories are not devoid of governance, but the structures of authority that do exist are unrelated to the formal institutions of the state. |
Across the territories, we assessed two dimensions: “ungovernability” and conduciveness to a terrorist or insurgent presence. Ungovernability means that the state is unable or unwilling to perform its functions. These territories are not devoid of governance, but the structures of authority that do exist are unrelated to the formal institutions of the state.
We used four variables for identifying and measuring ungovernability: the level of state penetration of society, the extent to which the state has a monopoly on the use of force, the extent to which the state controls its borders, and whether the state is subject to external intervention by other states. Some of the more complex variables are broken down further. For instance, state penetration of society includes the presence or absence of state institutions, the condition of physical infrastructure, the prevalence of an informal or gray economy, and social and cultural resistance to state penetration.
Not all ungoverned territories are equally inviting to terrorists, and so evaluating a territory’s vulnerability to terrorist infiltration requires another set of variables. We used these four to measure conduciveness to a terrorist presence: adequacy of infrastructure and operational access, availability of income sources, favorable demographics, and invisibility. Adequacy of infrastructure and operational access means that a terrorist group must have a basic communications and transportation network, plus a means of transferring funds, to conduct operations and reach targets. Favorable demographics are cultural or social characteristics that can be exploited by terrorists. Invisibility means the ability of terrorists to blend into the population and escape detection.
AP IMAGES/ALFRED DE MONTESQUIOURefugee women appear in the Otash refugee camp on the outskirts of south Darfur’s capital of Nyala, Sudan, on September 26, 2007. The United Nations warned that Sudan’s government was increasing the pressure on Darfur civilians to leave many refugee camps where they had fled to avoid violence — and that government forces were chasing the refugees out of Otash, home to 60,000 people. |
Overlapping Characteristics
All eight territories show a considerable lack of border control. This suggests that border control is a key variable in identifying ungoverned territories and might be a principal factor in managing them. The presence of organized armed groups outside a state’s control is another common characteristic across most regions, as is the absence or weakness of state institutions. Interference by external states does not appear to be a critical factor in most cases, except to the extent that Russia is considered an “external state” in some parts of the North Caucasus.
Favorable demographic and social conditions are key to a region’s conduciveness to terrorists. This complex variable comprises the presence of extremist groups, supportive social norms, informal social networks that can be exploited by terrorists, criminal syndicates that can serve as contractors for terrorists, and a preexisting state of violence.
Supportive social norms for terrorists often accompany social and cultural resistance to state penetration. This combination of factors typifies what we define as contested governance. Territories characterized by these two factors are among the areas of highest concern with regard to their potential for becoming terrorist sanctuaries. Chechnya (in the North Caucasus) and Mindanao score high on both counts. These are regions where local armed forces, actively disputing government control, seek to create their own state-like entity.
In contrast, the Latin American and African cases score low or medium on these indicators. This suggests a class of ungoverned territories in which ungovernability derives less from local resistance than from state incompetence or neglect — what we call either incomplete or abdicated governance. In cases of incomplete governance, the state has the will to exert its authority but lacks the resources. The government cannot maintain a presence that is stronger than competing power centers. The government lacks the capabilities to project rule into the regions. Local officials, where they exist, are inept or are co-opted by criminal organizations.
Abdicated governance amounts to willful neglect. Instead of producing public goods — such as safety, order, infrastructure, and services — the central government abdicates its responsibilities for marginal provinces and regions because it believes that nothing cost-effective can be done or because ethnic minorities with whom the government shares little affinity predominate. In some instances, such as in Saudi Arabia, the central government cedes border security to the local tribes. The North Caucasus also illustrates a type of abdicated governance and the nature of the ungoverned spaces that result, especially as Russian security services collude with illegal armed bands in the region.
These three types of ungoverned territories are not mutually exclusive. The Pakistani-Afghan border represents both contested and incomplete governance, while the North Caucasus contains elements of all three. There is value in identifying the root causes of different cases, however, because they point to different policy options.
When contested governance is the primary source of trouble, U.S. officials face the decision of whether to support the incumbent government. Doing so might lead to policies of counterinsurgency, development assistance, and foreign military financing, training, and education. When incomplete or abdicated governance is the root problem, policies that emphasize development assistance, foreign direct investment, and government reform are probably sound choices. But in certain nefarious cases of abdicated governance, the usual reform mechanisms might not be welcome.
AP IMAGES/MOYSES ZUNIGAZapatista National Liberation Army leaders Commander Tacho, Subcommander Marcos, and Major Moises salute during a meeting in Chiapas, Mexico, on July 28, 2007. The rebels have pledged to move away from armed struggle and toward politics but have not clearly defined their new political role more than a decade after seizing several towns in southern Chiapas in a short-lived revolt for Indian rights and socialism. |
Overarching Implications
Although ungoverned territories may spring from different sources that require different policy mixes, U.S. policy must always address the two sets of attributes that make some territories actual or potential terrorist sanctuaries: the lack of an effective state presence and the conduciveness to a terrorist presence. In such cases, we suggest this package of priorities to strike the right balance between security and development:
Reevaluate the role of development assistance. Currently, the United States tends to emphasize security cooperation and military assistance in dealing with the security problems generated by ungoverned territories. But extending the reach of government should involve other activities, too. One option is to use development assistance as a tool to encourage governments to invest in neglected infrastructure and institutions.
Improve transportation infrastructure. This policy could have profound effects in many ungoverned territories by improving the overall mobility within society. Improved mobility means that the police and judicial officials can expand their activities to remote areas; that legal crops can be brought to market at competitive prices, reducing the attractiveness of narcotics and other illicit crops; and that electricity, health care, public education, and the rule of law can reach remote regions of a country.
Promote competent government practices. Lack of coordination among agencies is a major obstacle to improving governance in ungoverned regions. Providing expert advice to officials on how to coordinate actions across departments and minimize bureaucratic competition would be an important step in strengthening public-sector capabilities.
Promote regional security architectures. Formal international organizations have a mixed record at best. As an alternative, the United States might promote less formal “regional architectures” to coordinate the efforts of states that share similar concerns about the corrosive effects of ungoverned territories, perhaps extending infrastructure, authority, order, economic activity, justice, and other public goods across multistate regions.
Mobilize regional organizations. Despite their unpromising records, existing organizations might prove beneficial when trying to reduce incomplete or abdicated governance or to resolve contested rule. The Organization of American States, the African Union, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, perhaps the Gulf Cooperation Council, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and the Black Sea Economic Cooperation Organization could provide forums for tackling mutual problems, forging cooperative strategies, and marshaling resources.
Address profound, official corruption directly. The United States must exercise caution to ensure that its assistance efforts are neither wasted by entrenched corruption in the public administration of recipient countries nor misused as lethal aid that enables a corrupt regime to prolong its grasp on power. Some regimes may not be salvageable.
Reduce terrorist exploitation of infrastructure. Terrorists typically need transportation and the ability to transfer money. The United States might help governments deploy well-trained officers in sufficient numbers to detect and apprehend terrorists trying to travel on public transportation. Modern monetary and banking systems with safeguards against money laundering and with software for tracking financial transactions could be an impediment to terrorist transactions.
The more that states fail to produce public goods . . . and become dependent upon nongovernmental and private organizations, the greater the probability that money from the assistance programs will be funneled by sympathizers to terrorists or extremists. |
Prevent exploitation of assistance programs. The more that states fail to produce public goods — public health, education, and social welfare services — and become dependent upon nongovernmental and private organizations, the greater the probability that money from the assistance programs will be funneled by sympathizers to terrorists or extremists. U.S. programs that help governments build capacity to produce public goods would eventually reduce the scope of terrorist exploitation.
Deny terrorists local sources of income. Terrorists derive income from criminal activity or from the black market or gray economies of the countries they inhabit. The United States therefore might help a government suppress or reduce the criminal activities that fund terrorists. Counterdrug assistance in regions where terrorist groups are involved in the illicit drug trade can also have a counterterrorism effect. At the same time, policies supporting a healthy, growing legitimate economy with expanding job opportunities might help steer otherwise unemployed young men away from terrorist activity.
Make invisibility more difficult to achieve. U.S. assistance to help a state control its borders — using instrumentation to detect illegal entrants, coastal surveillance systems, counterfeit-resistant passports, border-crossing watch lists, and biometric identification technologies — would reduce the probability that terrorists could cross borders undetected. Intelligence sharing and warnings could also reduce a terrorist’s anonymity. Expediting communication between intelligence agencies should therefore be an additional priority.
Ungoverned territories stem from deep-seated, long-standing problems in the societies in which they appear. Our recommendations are unlikely to render a region completely inhospitable to terrorism. However, taken collectively, these recommendations would make the region less appealing to terrorists and a more difficult place for them to operate. 
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