Pakistan ranks 12th on failed states index: Report

...[T]he country’s military leaders have made a “strategic” decision to allow the Pahstuns to govern themselves in what the report calls “ungoverned spaces” in the Pahstun-dominated badlands along the Afghanistan border.

Ahmadiyya Times | News Watch |Int'l Desk
Source/Credit: The Express Tribune
By Express | June 21, 2011

Pakistan ranked number 12 on a list of the “most failed states”, according to an annual report published in the Foreign Policy* magazine on Tuesday.

The report titled “The Failed States Index 2011” compiles a list of the of the world’s most vulnerable countries. From refugee flows to poverty, public services to security threats, the list takes together a country’s performance on this battery of indicators to reflect its stability.

In both 2009 and 2010, Pakistan took the number 10 spot on this index, whereas in 2008 it was ranked number nine.


The 2011 report states that Pakistan has long been dubbed the “world’s most dangerous country” in Washington policy circles.  The report states:

Tick off any checklist of US national security concerns, and Pakistan has them all: nuclear weapons, terrorist and insurgent groups galore, and rampant anti-American sentiment. Add to all this a volatile political system, and it’s no wonder that Pakistan preoccupies so many Western security analysts.

The report adds that Pakistan is not just dangerous for the West – it’s often a danger to its own people.

It also states that the cultivation of militant groups by the Pakistani military and intelligence services  – which the report states is a counterweight to India and a source of “strategic depth” in Afghanistan – has turned Pakistan into a “cockpit of terrorist violence”.

It adds that the country’s military leaders have made a “strategic” decision to allow the Pahstuns to govern themselves in what the report calls “ungoverned spaces” in the Pahstun-dominated badlands along the Afghanistan border.

The report cites terrorism and civilian deaths as one major reason for Pakistan’s position, adding that the 2010 floods displaced millions of people, adding to the instability of the country.

The top 20 states on this index are:

    Somalia
    Chad
    Sudan
    Congo
    Haiti
    Zimbabwe
    Afghanistan
    Central African Republic
    Iraq
    Ivory Coast
    Guinea
    Pakistan
    Yemen
    Nigeria
    Niger
    Kenya
    Burundi
    Burma
    Guinea-Bissau
    Ethiopia

*Foreign Policy is a bimonthly American magazine founded in 1970.



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