STEWART PATRICK

Al Qaeda’s presence in Pakistan and Yemen … is facilitated less by the states’ weakness than by the ruling regime’s unwillingness to combat Islamic extremism—and indeed, their decision to embrace jihadi groups.

Failed states are mainly a threat to their own inhabitants. We should help them anyway.

The world is not quite as inter-dependent as advertised. What happens in the poorest, most marginalized, and most dysfunctional places in the developing world only rarely comes back to bite those living in the wealthy world. What happens in failed states often stays in failed states.

Al Qaeda’s presence in Pakistan and Yemen … is facilitated less by the states’ weakness than by the ruling regime’s unwillingness to combat Islamic extremism—and indeed, their decision to embrace jihadi groups.

Failed states are mainly a threat to their own inhabitants. We should help them anyway.

The world is not quite as inter-dependent as advertised. What happens in the poorest, most marginalized, and most dysfunctional places in the developing world only rarely comes back to bite those living in the wealthy world. What happens in failed states often stays in failed states.