Asia and the Failed State Index By Brent M.

Eastwood, PhD (2010) Foreign Policy Magazine and the Fund for Peace have been calculating a Failed State Index since 2005. Recently 177 countries were analyzed using nearly a hundred thousand open source documents for the 2010 study. The index calculated scores based on 12 measurements of state decay and fragility. It incorporated grades on demographics, refugees, illegitimate governments, brain drain, public services, inequality, group grievances, human rights, economic decline, security forces, factionalized elites, and external intervention. Each criterion is ranked from one to ten with ten being the worst. Northeast and Southeast Asia have its share of bad actors on the list for various reasons. The index, though not perfect to be sure, has some utility for quantifying and ranking the stability of a country. Leading the list for Asian unstable countries is Burma (Myanmar) ranked 16th most fragile in the world. Burma gets its worst marks on its illegitimate government, uneven development, and poor human rights. East Timor is ranked 18th most unstable getting downgraded for its high number of refugees and need for foreign intervention to keep an unsteady peace. North Korea comes in 19th place, surprisingly since the country is a certified basket case. Obviously an illegitimate regime with a terrible record on human rights and economic development, it gets deceptively good grades on refugees and human flight. One can easily conclude that in this most totalitarian of police states in the world, its people are not that mobile and cannot leave. So some of its ratings are misleading. Nepal is 26th with a very high number of group grievances and uneven development. Laos is next at 40th with poor human rights and terribly factionalized elites. Its neighbor to the south, Cambodia, is 42nd and consistently miserable across the board. The surprise of the group is the Philippines at number 51. The study reports it is an illegitimate state with factionalized elites and internal security problems. Papua New Guinea brings up the rear at 57 hurt by its uneven development and awful public services. Altogether the rankings are not bad news for Eastern Asia. The Philippines have some issues to work on. Laos and Cambodia could be worse. North Korea, Nepal, and Burma treat their people terribly without a doubt. But Brunei and Vietnam escaped the failed states list, which is encouraging. Asian leaders in more stable countries should take note of their misbehaving neighbors. Eight of the countries in the region are considered fragile and close to failing. ASEAN should make it a priority to

foster better development and human rights in its community. The other Tigers cannot continue to carry the weight of its unruly brethren in Burma, Cambodia, Laos, and the Philippines.