Publication

The article analyzes US foreign policy on failed states. It uses Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels terminology to depict the US continuous movement between a 'Lilliputian' focus on the stabilization of failing states and the 'Brobdingnagian' focus on large state threats. It argues that the waxing and waning of great powers has always shaped the American view of failed states. With a rising China, the pendulum should swing from the current 'Lilliputian' era and instead towards the middle, with the United States keeping one eye on the inherent challenges of weak states, and one eye on the consequences for great power diplomacy.