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As the United States moves forward in the 21st century it will face unprecedented and multidimensional threats from a variety of sources.  Then Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, offered the United States Intelligence Community’s 2013 assessment of threats to US national security.

In the report it listed numerous potential threats to the U.S. emanating from of cyber-attacks on crucial U.S. infrastructure, international Terrorism and trans-national crime, WMD proliferation, natural resource competition, Health and pandemic threats, and atrocities. 

I would agree with Mr. Clapper that these will be recurring threats to the United States now, and into the future.  The more immediate threat to the United States however, and one that continually involve U.S. military operations, which will only continue in the near future, are challenges derived from instability in semi-failed to failed states.  

The first aspect is defining a “failed state is usually one which has lost control of its territory and borders, and lacks a defined governmental structure which provides for its own people, and is devoid of any interaction in the international community.

Semi-failed states don’t quite fit the definition of a failed state, and not all semi-failed or failed states pose a direct national security threat to the United States.  Unfortunately, there are various countries designated as semi-failed states and failed states that do, primarily by their strategic location.

September 11th was an example where a failed state, with a harsh tribal governmental structure, allowed a non-state actor with global ambitions to operate on its territory, from where it could launch attacks on the United States.

How many times over the past decades has the United States involved itself in Africa?  Military operations instigated against Libya, a semi-failed state, held together by sheer brutality of the regime. 

Whatever the merits of our intervention might have been, instability during the course of the uprising led to U.S. and N.A.T.O military operations toppling the regime of Muammar Gaddafi.  Since the regime fell, non-state actors and inattention by the U.S. has allowed other non-state actors such as Ansar al Sharia, with links to Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), to operate and gain a foothold. 

The whole aspect of the “Arab Spring” brings a different kind of strategic threat as governments that were held together by brutality, failed to meet the needs of the public.At the same time the pervasive and systematic government, inherent to corruption, finally rallied the citizenry in toppling the regime.

Many of these countries are strategically located in vital economic “choke points” such as Egypt.  It is important to remember, last year there was fear of a closer to the Suez Canal, thus dramatically affecting oil prices.  What would happen if the Suez Canal where to close, and how would the U.S. respond?        

Not all semi-failed states or failed states will solicit direct U.S. military intervention, but instability in many of these countries has spillage consequences in other countries.   Current conflicts now being formulated in Iraq and Syria are now destabilizing Lebanon, and have the potential to destabilize Jordan with Syrian refugees.      

Once dictators in Libya and Egypt fell from power the nation descended into chaos.  The Libyan experience became more fractured then in Egypt, as the nation was kept together by sheer brutality; when the government fell, stability went with it.

If you look at regional conflicts around the globe, you witness firsthand the effects of instability of the semi-failed and failed state, countries and how each of these has the potential to draw in United States. 

This is where the U.S. has to have strategic vision as it begins the debate extracting itself from Afghanistan.  Pakistan and Afghanistan qualify as semi-failed to failed states, and it is critical to remember that Pakistan is a nuclear power.

Where this new threat faces its greatest challenge is in Washington D.C.  If the threat a country faces is less from a nation, and more from a semi-failed or failed-state threat, which inadvertently descends into an insurrection, then it will need less costly weapons systems to counter these threats.

Right now defense strategists are clamoring for the F-22 and other high tech weapons systems, but the F-22 would not have been used in Iraq or Afghanistan.  This changes the political dynamics, especially for politicians wanting these defense jobs in their states.

The U.S. has to have a better strategic concept and not always utilize the military as the first and only option when countering these new threats.   Too often the military is the first option, but national security strategists but more importantly politicians need to use    all elements of U.S. national power fermented into “smart power”, and less on the military as the first option in resolving crisis.

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