citizenry. Few of these instability models anticipated
popular uprisings throughout much of North Africa
and the Middle East (e.g., Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, etc.).
Despite numerous case study analyses, little of the
quantitative conflict and instability research over the
past decade shows direct statistical linkages to natural
resources or environmental factors. However, this is
not surprising due to instability’s conceptual limita-
tions and the poor availability and applicability of en-
vironmental data at a country level of analysis (AEPI
2010). The research focus on instability concepts, cou-
pled with a growing interest in the utility of human
security, helped spur the emergence of complemen-
tary fragility concept within the U.S. national security
community.
Highly fragile states often rank similarly on both
instability and failed state lists, but fragility should
be considered a broader set of descriptive metrics
and dynamics (AEPI 2010). AEPI found fragility pro-
vides a conceptually clearer relationship (Figure 2)
and temporal alignment with natural resource factors
(2010). While not only conceptually broader, fragil-
ity approaches can incorporate longer-term (two—
10-year trends), country-level performance statistics
(effectiveness), and measures of popular perception
(legitimacy). While moving temporally closer to what
is termed Phase 0 “shaping” operations on the con-
flict spectrum, fragility approaches provide a great
breadth and depth of security, political, economic, and
social dynamics. These can more effectively inform
USG assessments, policymaking, intervention plan-
ning, and resource prioritization. USG agencies, such
as USAID, are finding paired instability and fragility
approaches are complementary when used together.
In the near term, they provide improved situational
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