State Failure Quotes

The government solution to a problem is usually as bad as the problem.

The ruin of a State is generally preceded by an universal degeneracy of manners and contempt of religion.

The time for the State to protect himself against the criminal is before the criminal is made. Most criminals are not born, they are made.... What a State really punishes in a criminal is its own neglect, it's own failure to do its duty to the citizens.

The Empire of China is an old, crazy, first-rate Man of War, which a fortunate succession of able and vigilant officers have contrived to keep afloat for these hundred and fifty years past, and to overawe their neighbours merely by her bulk and appearance. But whenever an insufficient man happens to have the command on deck, adieu to the discipline and safety of the ship. She may, perhaps, not sink outright; she may drift some time as a wreck, and will then be dashed to pieces on the shore; but she can never be rebuilt on the old bottom.

The principle [secession] itself is one of disintegration, and upon which no government can possibly endure

All great nations inevitably end up committing suicide.

Foreign policy is consumed with momentary crises —– often created by failing states and violent groups. But in the long run, he future is shaped by winners, not noisy losers.

At regular intervals in Chinese history it suffers complete collapse and the central government disintegrates.

Russia has nothing: no successful politics or economy.

As the result of two successful campaigns, of the employment of an enormous force, and of the expenditure of large sums of money, all that has yet been accomplished has been the disintegration of the [Afghan] State … and a condition of anarchy throughout the rest of the country.

When I see the worsening degeneracy in our politicians, our media, our educators, and our intelligentsia, I can’t help wondering if the day may yet come when the only thing that can save this country is a military coup

nations decay from within more often than they surrender to outward assault.

The United States learned a big lesson. Its greatest danger in the world came not from large nations but from failed states.

In Sicily the Mafia kills the servants of the State that the State has not been able to protect.

Government is not the solution, but rather the cause of our problems.

States with shallow domestic legitimacy tend to fail when they lose foreign support.

Along the borders to Ethiopia and Somalia, anarchy reigns, the police and military have retreated quite some distance.

Despite the increase in world attention toward Sudan in the past months, the genocide in Darfur has continued without any serious attempt by the Sudanese government to do what governments primarily exist to do, protect their citizens.

The complete lack of governance in huge swaths of the Middle East - that is the project of the American establishment.

We can't afford to see Afghanistan roll backwards into a failed state that could become a base from which terrorist campaigns can be launched anywhere in the world.

Government destitute of energy, will ever produce anarchy.

I don't believe in binational states. There are wonderful examples of this, prosperous multinational states: Switzerland, Switzerland and Switzerland. Everywhere else - be it Cyprus, Yugoslavia or the Soviet Union, it ended in a terrible bloodbath.

I was fascinated by what happens when government institutions fail and citizens take the law into their own hands.

The greatest of all evils is a weak government.

In situations of military conflict, civil strife, lawlessness, bad governance, and human rights violations, terrorists find it easier to hide, train and prepare their attacks.