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This chapter examines the cases of Mexico and Central America. It begins with an analysis of the issues of drug trafficking and organized crime in Mexico, which have contributed to the high levels of corruption and violence within the country. The chapter focuses on President Felipe Calderon’s drug war and the consequences of such policies. It examines the underlying structural problems, focusing on the high levels of corruption and impunity that the country faces. The chapter also assesses the challenges that Mexico will likely continue to face in the future and the impact on regional security. It then turns to corruption and organized crime in Central America, focusing on the major trends in El Salvador and Honduras. It highlights the issue of immigration, focusing on the major trends as well as the current policies of the Trump administration.

This chapter underscores the importance of institutions, specifically the constitution, on certain fragile Latin America countries and Lebanon. The political culture in these areas encourage constitutional ineffectiveness, whether the executive branch of government manipulates it to protect itself like in Latin America, or, a static, unwritten agreement that solidifies the power of patronage and clientelism as in Lebanon. The end result is the same in these cases: the inability of the state to encourage economic development and progress.

This chapter illustrates the explanatory power of our theory expounded on in Chapters 2 and 3. It explains the proliferation of corruption, illicit trafficking, and terrorism in Central Asia and the Middle East. Beginning in Afghanistan, narcotics trafficking spreads through corruption as traffickers attempt to get their goods to market. Culture plays an important role in the spread of corruption, and this chapter takes time to illustrate this, especially in the Middle East. Thus, dealing with corruption increases in complexity, given the embedded normative system of the region.

This chapter looks at the global power of the Russian mafia, tracing its roots and its success in the post-Cold War system. Corruption became endemic in the 1980s, when organized criminal groups anticipated the end of the Soviet Union. The institutional weakness of the new state of Russia and the power of Russian oligarchs created the perfect storm for the mafia as well as extra-judicial practice. This chapter also discusses the Putin regime and its use of corruption as a lever of power.

This chapter provides the book with a theoretical framework applied to cases. It explores contemporary conceptualizations of fragility, corruption, and institution building. Building on previously established literature, the chapter explores why domestic institutions matter to international stability, as corruption tends to spread from weaker states to regional locations.

This chapter concludes the volume with a discussion about the issue of reforming major institutions. It begins with a discussion of the police and the different measures that have been taken to reform the police in various cases. Next, it turns to the issue of the penitentiary system, which requires serious reforms. Some prisons in cases studied in this volume have major issues with overcrowding. Moreover, some prisons, such as in El Salvador and Mexico, have functioned as schools of crime where criminal groups have organized. The chapter then explores the issue of judicial reform. Many countries seeking to combat the high levels of corruption and impunity require judicial reforms. It focuses on the reforms that have occurred in Mexico and highlights some of the major challenges. Moreover, it finishes with an examination of the role of international institutions in helping countries reform their judiciary system.

This chapter focuses on the global superstructure and states that facilitate demand and supply. Looking specifically at weak and fragile states of the international system, the chapter illustrates the role of corruption, underdevelopment, and political/institutional weakness that enable global crime and violence. Some fragile states produce the goods and services (e.g., drugs) that are then marketed and ultimately sold to other countries. This means the United States and states of the European Union are the target of illicit suppliers; and as long as people in those states demand those goods, organized criminal networks will thrive. The chapter encourages more coordination through already established regimes like Interpol.

As long as certain commodities and services are deemed illegal by the state, illicit markets will exist if there is significant demand for them. Prohibition gives illicit materials a higher price, as risk-takers form cartels and indulge in criminal operations to make as much money as possible. This has been true throughout history in most corners of the world. This chapter will discuss moments in history when the state tried to ban certain goods for the purpose of morality. Most of the time, the result has been the formation of black markets to supply the good.

States within the system have two choices given systemic change: war or peace. This book began with the supposition that states are psychopaths and inclined to go to war. If states are left to their own devices this may indeed happen. The second option, peace, requires action from the grassroots. States as led by elites have failed to guarantee world peace. This chapter suggests social and economic stability embedded by the promotion of human development over extravagant, psychopathic prestige-seeking activity. Such focus may be able to avoid war. Here, I will explore the cognitive mechanisms, which result in such a decision. It will also explore the concept of forgiveness as a productive part of systemic practice. This will serve as this work’s normative offering, imagining new forms of governance.

This chapter looks at the conflict of regionalism between neoempires currently organizing: the European Union led by Germany and the Eurasian Union led by Russia. The European Union was a project to end war among European states. After the Cold War, it expanded into space perceived by Russia to be sacred. This action forced Russia to create the Eurasian Union to strengthen its own position in a way similar to that of the European Union. Russia is now seeking to recover some of its lost space which explains action in Ukraine today. This chapter will try to make sense of systemic competition between these two groups.

This chapter will discuss state behavior as driven by the individual. States are locked into a structure of psychopathy which results in war. War is ultimately a form of mass murder which is of course justified by the psychopathic actor: the state. The environment of kill or be killed also expedites prestige seeking which is a form of narcissism. This chapter connects great power war making activity with the analysis of motivations to understand state behavior.

This chapter continues to illustrate the intersect of great and weak power grand strategies by submitting a new concept to the field of international relations: neoempire. Neoempire indicates the development of a new political unit that seeks to unite weak states under the banner of a great power. Led by a network of elites across involved states, neoempire signifies a shift from focus on states to consider new systemically creative actors that organize states into coherent economic and political blocs. These units organize production and trade into competing world-systems. World-systems theory provides an interesting lens to analyze state activity into this interesting new grouping.

This chapter continues with the discussion of grand strategy with a focus on great powers. Great powers face off with other great powers given the nature of the international system. These systemically dominant/creative units constantly size up one another in the eternal fight for hegemony. In the case of this book, world-systems are the intervening variable within an existing competitive international system constructed by great powers (independent variable) to explain their overall balancing behavior. Great powers are forced into a competition for leadership. These behaviors will be explained as part of systems-creation through competition. The concept of systemic practice which describes these behaviors will be defined.

This chapter defines grand strategies of particular states as they correspond with threats to survival. Great powers are driven to strengthen their position in the world through prestige-seeking behavior. Prestige is understood as a psychological identity of great power exceptionalism. Great powers are in conflict over prestige-seeking behavior which defines their attempt to balance one another’s exceptionalism. Conversely, weak states are particularly systemically vulnerable units in anarchy. Weak state grand strategy dictates survival by any means necessary. This causes playing the field which breaks the balance of power expectation of bandwagoning. Weak states submit their political autonomy to great powers and gain aid to enable their own survival. Great powers then wrestle for control of the board.

This chapter will discuss the foreign policy activity of the United States and China with regards to the developing world. The United States found developing regions particularly important during the Cold War and continues to be a powerful force economically and politically. China has increased its own presence in these regions beginning in the 1990s. More recently, we have seen an increased interest in the developing world made manifest through the development of counter global development banking institutions. The battle between Bretton Woods institutions and BRICS institutions seeks to solidify a world-system to serve the prestige of leading states within these regimes. These two powers, the United States and China, are continuing to compete in these regions to create a political-economic bloc, a neoempire, serving its own power acquisition purposes.

States seeking security and power will inevitably fall into traps intrinsic to the makeup of the international system. The security dilemma and imperial overstretch describe these predictabilities. States are led into these snares by leaders and their need to survive, not always to survive as independent units, but in some instances to defend their position as, or to become, a hegemonic power. This chapter examines two sources of vulnerability. First, systemic state vulnerabilities, the security dilemma, tests the limits of any state’s expansion. Second, states, seeking security or domination, will face serious challenges from the natural world which only drain resources. The importance of containment and a Fabian strategy becomes absolutely essential to curtailing the expansion of revisionist powers by targeting their economic faculties.

Weak states, in believing they are weak, act in terms of their capability. The same can be said about great powers. Mentalities ultimately create state behavior and define the range of foreign policy options available to a state. I will test this supposition by applying the analysis to a state that went from weak to great and back to weak again: Weimar Germany’s transformation into Nazi Germany and then to defeated Germany.

Terrorism is an asymmetrical tactic that communicates a particular message as part of a wider strategy. Military strikes will enhance terrorist networks and will only advance tensions, increase radicalization and lead to more violent reprisals. This would explain Islamic State’s increasingly barbaric actions in the world. If states persist in their futile attempt at trying to subdue Islamic State by force, they will have to accept serious responsibility. The author suggests establishing the motive of these groups before action is taken. Policy-makers can then deal with the problem efficiently by targeting motivations. Violent reactions will only illicit further violence from terrorist networks, exacerbating and strengthening the power of political vulnerabilities.

Environmental degradation affects human health: the more polluted our world becomes, the more people will suffer and die. All aspects of vulnerability discussed in this book can be worsened in times of environmental crisis: states go to war over control of scarce resources like water; economic instability increases in times of famine and the drastic vicissitudes brought on by climate change; diseases spread and people starve due to deforestation and lack of food; violent political ideologies proliferate to ensure survival in a dystopian world. Health vulnerabilities exacerbated by environmental degradation affect entire populations regardless of wealth and destroys states’ abilities to develop. The author argues that states cannot be relied upon to protect the environment and places emphasis instead on the role of the private sector.

Anders Breivik was 33 years old at the time of the massacre. His paranoia and hatred for Islam and other ethnicities led him to commit a crime never before seen or contemplated by Norwegians or the world. Over the period of three years, he, along with some “courageous others,” wrote a 1,515-page manifesto that discusses his views of the world; their politics put loosely (Breivik 2011, 12). According to Breivik: The compendium,—“2083—A European Declaration of Independence”— documents through more than 1000 pages that the fear of Islamisation is all but irrational.

In chapter 2, we discussed the processes of emotion in the human mind. We conceptualized emotion as a subjective process that creates and defines societal knowledge. Emotions are locked in a relationship of mutual constitution with our intersubjective world. Emotions simultaneously construct society, the structure of knowledge, which also shapes and impacts the emotions of others.

This chapter will discuss the histories of Zionism, Arab nationalism, Islamism, and popularity of US neoconservative foreign policy after 9/11. Organized differently than previous chapters, this one takes care to highlight the emotional reaction of peoples related to other ideologies; each ideology is an explicit answer to other ideologies. It documents the formulation of alternative ideological frameworks given fear of the first. While this particular chapter is written in a very different style, it stays true to the theoretical framework. Political ideology and its violence becomes the guiding force of fear, which constructs other ideologies and violence. Hence, this chapter sees ideologies as part of a dialectical conversation; violence and death, and the fear of violence and death, becomes the main driver of politics and the consolidation of a structure of violence that further shapes our political perceptions.

What drives the curiosity that leads one to research? Is it excitement over a certain topic or question? Is it anxiety over a certain social issue? What makes or leads people to begin a study? Encouraging introspection in my work, my research agenda is led by excitement over certain topics, especially the theoretical. This chapter aims to define emotions to help describe the function of the intellect.

In the last chapter, we discussed that people make choices based on a ranked order of preferences, calculating the costs and benefits of actions needed to achieve their goals. The range of choices available or known to the individual is fundamentally the product of that person’s emotional needs that pertain to survival and the enjoyment of the human experience (as we live). Emotions form the ranked order of preferences. It creates the perception of certain needs as important to the subject.

The purpose of this chapter is to test the proposed assumptions using comparative case analysis. This will be done to tease out commonalities between two most different states. This research question calls for an in-depth and comprehensive understanding of context, motivation, and international behavior of Armenia and St. Kitts and Nevis, using the theoretical framework of Neoclassical Realism. The following assumptions will be put to the test: 1. Weak states operate within a Waltzian system of anarchy: they “pass the buck” and successfully persuade great powers to intervene or assist on their behalf. 2. Weak states are vulnerable and are known by this systemic weakness and lack of autonomy. 3. Given their vulnerability, weak states define their interests in terms of economic development that does not disturb the balance of power. 4. Weak states, like other states, opportunistically pursue their goals independent of bandwagoning. 5. Great powers defend their interests similarly, which results in competition.

Chapter 5 discussed the power of aid over weak states. Buying votes at the United Nations General Assembly presents the United States, and other great powers, with ample ability to pursue their interests under the guise of legitimacy gained by the democratic process. Weak states may not always bandwagon; they may take aid from great powers, however, especially if they assist in development. There are of course repercussions for such behavior, especially with the emergence of new powers. This chapter will utilize Gilpin’s theory of hegemonic war—his international political economy theory of Economic Nationalism—to explain the politics of emerging donors and their pursuit of interest. This chapter specifically confronts this book’s theoretical expectation that describes the change in great power grand strategy and the competition for weak state political support In other words, if emerging powers use the same strategy of vote buying as described in chapter 5, we can expect a significant change in great power grand strategy regarding weak states—from security and balancing, using alliances, to economic development and the game of Go. This chapter will describe the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as an example of an emerging state (or one that is perceived by many to be emerging; whether or not this is true is a subject for another work).

Weak states are not the exception; like any other state, they operate within the international system as described by Structural Realism. According to this theory, while the structure of this system is not made up of weak state capabilities, they are certainly impacted by it. However, the system’s fundamental attribute presents different states with differing capabilities and the ability to behave in very different ways. Thus, the primary mover of all international politics is the structure of the international system. Great power security behavior creates the international system. Hence, great power behavior forms my key independent variable.

Thus far, I have discussed how weak states survive within the structure of the international system. Weak states survive by enjoying the shelter provided by the balance of power. They are defined as vulnerable states that have difficulty consolidating sovereignty. This directly affects their autonomy and ability to act in the international system. Since this is so, they pursue their interests mainly to acquire the resources necessary to develop economically. Combining these two facts, we can conclude that weak states can appear withdrawn from great power rivalry if they demonstrate an obvious inability to affect and influence the balance of power. Building on these theoretical statements, one must recognize that weak states do not always choose to bandwagon or balance. Rather, they are able to operate opportunistically, engaging in trade and sometimes scandalous aid relationships with parties on either side of the balance of power for the purposes of gaining economic development. This autonomy is, of course, the dependent variable of this book, and will be described in this and the following chapter.

The discussion of great powers and weak states is a timeless one. It dates back to the times of the Ancient Greeks. The Melian Dialogue portrays the clash between Athens, a rising great power and the island of Melos, a weak, neutral nation east of Sparta. Melos is an important asset to Athens because of its strategic importance. Annexing this island also communicates to Sparta that Athens is a regional power. Why did Melos exist in the first place? What did it do and how did it relate to other powers? Why do weak states exist at all? It could very well be argued that weak states owe their very existence to great powers—“either to the balance of power, or to their lack of attractiveness for imperialist inspirations” (Morgenthau 1948, 196). As Morgenthau says, a weak state is seen as “attractive” to great powers only to the extent that it helps achieve regional or world domination against another great power. Weak states are sheltered by the international system; they are a part of it, but remain separate from great power struggles for survival since they are deemed unnecessary. Weak states rely on great powers and use the international system to their advantage.

In an article titled “Thinking Outside the Bloc: Explaining the Foreign Policies of Small States,” Gvalia et al. attempt to explain away the abnormality of Georgian action as against the supposition that small states are limited to bandwagoning. They argue that Georgia balanced against Russia due to elitist nationalist and Western ideology that constructed Georgian foreign policy after the Rose Revolution (Gvalia et al. 2013, 99). Ideas about identity and the purpose of the state combined to form Georgian reaction to the breakaway regions of South Ossetia, despite their deep economic relationship with, and close proximity to, Russia at the time (Ibid., 100). They did so because “The European idea is based on the long-term development of the country. If we are with the West, Georgia will mature as a state and society” (Ibid., 113). This Westward movement for development’s sake led Russia to support separatist movements in Abkhazia and South Ossetia as a way to counter Georgian foreign policy. All this occurred as Georgia’s economic dependence on Russia increased between 2003 and 2006, even during the Rose Revolution. What does all this mean? More importantly, was Georgian military action in 2008 simply an effort to retake Georgian lands, depending on Western support to counter Russian responses, given their simultaneous relationship with these two rivals?

In his book Drugs: America’s Holy War, Arthur Benavie declares that the war on drugs and the practice of prohibition is 99 years old; this war turned 100 in 2014. He provocatively asks, ‘[iijas the war been worth it? lias prohibition, as a policy, achieved the goals it set out to accomplish? The answer is an emphatic no. He cites the continued tiow and use of drugs, health issues and the spread of HIV /AIDS, homicides and gang violence, the destruction of families, and the wasting of human life and potential. These negative repercussions occur alongside attempts to continue prohibition at the expense of taxpayers, national security, human security, and the LIS Constitution.