ABSTRACT
In the Introduction we met two very different broad ideas about security failure. The first is the dominant idea, the idea of the failed state agenda. It presides in the world of policy briefs, strategic papers, country warning reports and intelligence assessments—and it augurs ill. The threats faced by weak states are awesome—global criminal networks, insurgencies, terrorists. These are trans-national enemies operating from the outside, and they aim to come in, take control of and overthrow the state. They thus pose a threat to international order. Not only is securitization a justified response to them by the state and its international allies; it is the only possible response. The threatened state must put itself on maximum security alert. This means that it must undertake militarization—the military’s openly active involvement in public order policies, as well as in the wars on drugs and terror. The assistance the state receives from its key international allies will be predominantly in the form of transfers bolstering military capacities and responses. Both the state’s own efforts and this assistance will save it from failing.
