The Challenges of State Fragility for US and Global Security in an Interdependent World

The Stanley Center used the occasion of its 50th Strategy for Peace Conference at Airlie House Conference Center in Warrenton, Virginia, to go beyond the well-worn debates over which bureaucratic agencies or departments should have more funding or authority. Instead, participants addressed the major (often implicit) political/conceptual hurdles still blocking structural changes in US policies and toolkits toward the most fragile, weak, and failing states in the international system.

In a Track 1 1/2, not-for-attribution format, participants were asked to assess the core question, “What does it mean for the United States to treat state fragility, in all its forms and guises, as a strategic security challenge on the same order as nuclear proliferation or competition with rising powers such as China?”