The 25 Most Failed States On Earth{photos}

[Igel]

6. Countries that "peel off" are usually outlier territories.

They think they've been oppressed and that without their oppressors they'd immediately be wealthy. Doesn't work that way. Also works in Europe--Slovakia wasn't an immediate success (hear about them recently? no?); Transdniestria is a recurring disaster.

You don't want to ponder some of the former Soviet republics. Just think what some of the regions that wanted to breakaway in the early '90s would be like today if they had succeeded.

Bosnia-Herzegovina isn't a shining light of wealth and civilization. Nor is Macedonia. Both thought themselves eagles bound in oppressors' chains. Both turned out to be kiwis.

Catalonia, were it independent, might be different. Might not be.

Same with Eritrea. S. Sudan. They have a larger issue, though--riven by tribal rivalries, they've never had a system that encouraged integration and assimilation to a single prestige norm. Instead, their governments focused on a single official culture or on keeping everybody in subjection. Instead, leaders see themselves as tribe members first and national leaders second; this leads them, as did leaders in some of the ethnically-riven countries in Europe, to funnel all good things to their own and bad things to their opponents. (Tito in Jugoslavija was rather the opposite--and had ethnic loyalty from his "tribe" and bribed loyalty from others.)