Rogue state

A rogue state, in the most general sense, is a state that abides neither by international law nor international standards of proper governance and behaviour.

The term is used almost exclusively by the government of the United States and thus has not gained wide acceptance, due to the lack of consensus that America should be entitled to judge the conduct of other nations unilaterally.

States that have the label applied to them are typically ruled by authoritarian regimes that severely restrict human rights. They are generally hostile to the West and its allies, and are often accused of sponsoring terrorism and/or seeking to acquire or develop weapons of mass destruction.

Such states may have any number of these qualities:

Squanders national resources for the personal gain of the rulers, caring little of the needs and desires of the general populace
Exposits little or no regard for international law, threaten their neighbors, and callously violate international treaties to which they are party
Possession or determination to possess weapons of mass destruction and/or other advanced military technology, for use in an aggressive manner
Sponsorship of global terrorism
Irrationality to the extent that conventional methods of negotiation are ineffective
Rejection of basic human rights

The US has used the alleged threat posed by rogue states to the security of other countries to justify its foreign policy and other initiatives; for example, renewed interest in and funding of anti-ballistic missiles programs are, according to US officials, grounded in the concern that a rogue state may launch a weapon of mass destruction against the US and not be deterred by the certainty of retaliation. North Korea and Iraq have been suggested as "rogue states", along with Iran, Syria, and Libya.

In the last 6 months of the Clinton administration, the term "rogue state" was temporarily replaced with the term "state of concern", however the Bush administration has preferred the less euphemistic term.

Since the September 11 terrorist attacks, the term rogue state has been supplemented in the United States by the term "axis of evil", adopted (January 29, 2002) by President George W. Bush in reference to Iraq, Iran and North Korea.

Some critics charge that "rogue state" merely means any state that opposes the US. Others accuse the US of being a rogue state itself, whose foreign policy is sometimes accused of having the sort of brutality and capriciousness of those it considers "rogue states". The book Rogue Nation claims that the US is as much of a "rogue state" as any other, even by its own standards.

Many critics have applied the label to the United States for its "unilateralism", noting its skirting of several major international treaties including the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (from which it withdrew), the International Convention on the Rights of the Child (which it did not ratify), the International Criminal Court (did not ratify, and refuses to accept its jurisdiction) and the Kyoto Protocol on the Environment (signed, but did not ratify). Even more concerning is the tendency of the US to take armed action against governments it dislikes virtually on its own, particularly the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

External link

Prevent Our Enemies from Threatening Us, Our Allies, and Our Friends with Weapons of Mass Destruction -- official White House statement