ABSTRACT
This chapter offers an examination of United Kingdom (UK) and United States (US) geopolitical scripting of 2003 military interventions in Iraq. It examines the conceptual position of the state within current Western security strategies. The chapter explores paradoxical spatialization of sovereignty within current Western foreign policies: namely, the right to adjudicate and intervene in global affairs whilst simultaneously identifying the state as the pre-eminent container of political power. It examines one such spatial imaginary: the problematic state, whether fragile, failed or rogue. The Bush administration's launch of a war on terror following the attacks of 11 September 2001 acted as a mechanism for the justification of military intervention in a number of sovereign states. The Afghanistan intervention consequently demonstrates the ability of failed state marker to both spatialize the development security nexus while simultaneously providing a recognizable target for military intervention.
