Pakistan ranks 12th on failed states index:

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 countries in terms of vulnerability. 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.

Amongst Pakistan’s neighbouring states, Afghanistan ranks 7 while Iran ranks 35. FP magazine states that these countries are on ‘alert’.

Bangladesh ranks 25, and Sri Lanka is 29 on this list.

China ranks 72, whereas India ranks 76 on the list. These countries are considered to be in the ‘moderate’ zone for vulnerability.

The US ranks 158, while the UK ranks 159.

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 failed 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