THINK PIECE 02 Summary • trends dominate today’s international arena: globalization and fragmentation. Although di ­ametrically opposed, both trends dilute the monopoly on the use of force. • actors challenge exist ­ing states from different perspec ­tives. In fact, among the list of non-state actors, only criminal networks prefer a weak/corrupt state or no state at all. • conflict precludes devel ­opment and undermines prosper ­ity. At the same time, a sovereign state with a monopoly on the use of force does not always produce prosperity. However, the link between legitimate monopoly on the use of force and sustainable prosperity is evident. • energies should focus on concrete ways to improve legitimacy and strengthen the effectiveness of the state in its monopoly on the use of force. In a parallel effort, we should push states to work together to create strong international regimes to manage and mitigate the trans ­national threats. • toward mutual de ­pendence within states would provide a foundation upon which to build effective international regimes to master transnational threats to security, order, and prosperity. 1 Prosperity and Monopoly on the Use of Force Ann L. Phillips Sovereign states have been the primary actors in what became known as the modern state system. Monopoly on the use of force is a distin ­guishing characteristic of state sovereignty. Of course, neither sover ­eignty nor monopoly on the use of force has ever been absolute, but current challenges to both appear greater than ever. From a West ­ern perspective, the relative predictability of the European balance of power system since the Peace of Westphalia and the Cold War security architecture after World War II, however tense, has given way to an era of prevailing uncertainty. 1 That twenty-five years after the collapse of the Warsaw Treaty Organization and the implosion of the USSR,»post-Cold War« is the label used for the current international environment underscores its fluid and opaque contours. Two countervailing trends dominate today’s international arena: glo ­balization and fragmentation. Although both phenomena have been present throughout much of history to varying degrees, they have more far-reaching impact today. The term globalization is meant to capture the more extensive and deeper integration and interdepend ­ence that appeared to remake international relations toward the end of the twentieth century. At the same time, fragmentation emerged as an equally powerful trend. Although diametrically opposed, both trends undermine sovereignty and dilute the monopoly on the use of force. Indeed, the clash between centripetal and centrifugal forces seems to be the hallmark of the twenty-first century. The clashing forces have produced considerable angst expressed in numerous book and article titles, such as World on Fire, A World Adrift, The Unraveling, and Years of Living Dangerously. At the same time, the overheated media environment has magnified calls to over ­haul the concepts of sovereignty and monopoly on the use of force or jettison them as anachronistic. Before giving in to intellectual fashion, however, a pause to reflect on the implications of doing either is in order. Our reflection begins with two questions: First, how»new« is the current disorder? By extension, how embattled is the state as the organizing unit of the international arena? And second, what role has monopoly on the use of force played in progress and prosper ­ity? Conversely, what has its absence meant for economic and social development? 1 For many outside the West, order remained elusive--from the European competition for colonies in the nineteenth century through the Cold War when decolonization, wars of national liberation and proxy wars dominated their environment.