Yet another ship was hijacked by pirates off the coast of Somalia on Sunday, bringing the total of ships seized there to over 30 this year alone. The current tally is that up to 200 seafarers are being held hostage for ransom.
The US Navy has said bluntly that it can’t guarantee security and that “shipping companies must take measures to defend their vessels and their crews”; shipowners, for their part, are urging EU governments to “recognise the seriousness of the situation and to urgently deploy more warships to the Gulf of Aden and to the seas off the coast of Somalia with the required rules of engagement to enable direct action to be taken against the pirates”. But as US vice-admiral Bill Gortney notes, “this is a problem that starts ashore and requires an international solution. We made this clear at the outset — our efforts cannot guarantee safety in the region”.
In other words, failed states – right? Well, perhaps not entirely. After all, “failed” implies that some kind of effort was underway in the first place, whereas the reality is that for some at least, the absence of formal state control was always the design. Peter Lamborn Wilson notes that:
The sea-rovers and Corsairs of the 18th century created an “information network” that spanned the globe: primitive and devoted primarily to grim business, the net nevertheless functioned admirably. Scattered throughout the net were islands, remote hideouts where ships could be watered and provisioned, booty traded for luxuries and necessities. Some of these islands supported “intentional communities,” whole mini-societies living consciously outside the law and determined to keep it up, even if only for a short but merry life.
Lamborn Wilson is the creator of the idea of Temporary Autonomous Zones, which are more or less what they say on the tin: places where, at least for a while, a zone outside of state control is created. Now while one permutation of TAZs sees them as bases for crime, terrorism and so forth, Lamborn – an anarchistically minded fellow – is as a rule positively enthusiastic about TAZs, as indeed are his libertarian followers (hence the popularity of the concept in rave culture, where free parties can be seen as TAZs).
But where the idea of TAZs really starts to get interesting is when you watch the counter-insurgency / 4GW crowd start to play with it.
John Robb, for instance, wrote a post back in 2004 arguing that Fallujah was then a TAZ being used by global guerrillas for regional operations. He continued,
A TAZ is not a major source of funding, manpower, or supply for the insurgency. It doesn’t power the insurgency at a root level. It is merely a geographic zone that is free of state control — an organic byproduct of a failed or weak state. Global guerrillas find sanctuary in a TAZ because they fight the same enemy. The state. A TAZ provides:
Basic shelter (housing, etc. that can be bought).
Freedom of movement (it is a no-go zone for forces of the state).
Open commerce (interconnections with other groups, trading, etc.)
By extension, of course, there’s no rule that says that only terrorists or insurgents can benefit from TAZs. Gordon Housworth, for example, posits that ‘sovereign super-individuals’ among the new global super-rich, can also create their own TAZs:
Certain sovereign individuals such as George Soros will be wealthy enough to create their own TAZ, and may well attract lesser sovereigns to join. The key is enough power to stave off predation, i.e., either the sovereign is a superindividual, joins a superindividual or bands together with like sovereigns to form a defensive entity against likely aggressors …
Just as with the original Medieval and Renaissance principalities, the new duchies will not be created equal. They will both trade and war with one another. This analyst regards the longevity of a TAZ similar to that of an arms merchant: be as useful to many without being especially annoying to influential patrons or competitors (that can terminate life, steal treasure, or both). A TAZ will have to have to be adaptive and possess excellent means of surveillance and early warning of aggressors.
Needless to say, the potential for TAZs to flourish increases with the extent to which the state that nominally controls the territory on which they’re based is weakened or indeed hollowed out. As John Robb puts it, “the hollow state has the trappings of a modern nation-state (“leaders”, membership in international organizations, regulations, laws, and a bureaucracy) but it lacks any of the legitimacy, services, and control of its historical counter-part. It is merely a shell that has some influence over the spoils of the economy.” This brings us back to the current financial crisis – which, Robb continues, is just the sort of crisis that can hollow out a state. How?
Corporations and connected individuals systematically loot the nation-state of financial assets and natural resources through a series of insider/no cost deals. These deals are made to “save” the nation’s economy or financial system from collapse.
Once the full measure of the crisis is known, the nation-state’s currency falls precipitously, its debt becomes expensive, and it is forced to submit to international oversight/rules.
The services the state provides rapidly evaporate as its bureaucracy is starved for cash/financing. This opens up a window for the corruption of government employees unused to deprivation.
And then?
For individuals, there is a rapid and sustained decline in the standard of living. Additionally, there are spot shortages of critical items and commodities — particularly food, medicine, and energy (since these are globally fungible). Large and small business fail across the board, or become prey to connected companies/individuals with access to the remaining coercive power of the nation-state.
As the deprivation becomes commonplace, people turn to primary loyalties for support and services — loyalties to a corporation, tribe, gang, family, or community. These groups, energized by new levels of loyalty but deeply obligated to reciprocate this loyalty with support, become extremely aggressive in pursuit of their survival. Once this shift in loyalty is made, a self-generating cycle of violence, crime, and corruption (fueled in large part through connections to the global market system) becomes entrenched. The nation-state, at that point, becomes irretrievably hollow.
