Or sooner, that is the topic of my latest essay for The Free Press. Excerpt:
The most radical redefinition of the nation-state may be coming from Haiti, where preexisting forms of government appear to have collapsed altogether. Haiti has been a troubled place for a long time, but when I used to visit in the 1990s you could come and go intact—at least if you exercised commonsense precautions.
But since 2023, there have been no elected officials of any kind present in Haiti. That is highly unusual for what was supposed to be a democracy. Circa mid-2025, criminal gangs took control of most of Port-au-Prince, the capital and most populous city of the country. Murder rates are skyrocketing, and if somehow I were foolish enough to show my face in the country (by the way, the main airport is not usually open) it is likely I would be kidnapped almost immediately.
The remaining fragments of the government have taken to carrying out drone attacks on the criminal gangs, but without making much if any progress in reestablishing their rule. Mainly it is the warlords who are left, and who also run the country.
Various U.S. interventions, most notably under President Clinton in the 1990s, and UN-backed troop deployments have failed to prevent Haiti from falling to pieces. You can say the world has not tried hard enough, but you cannot say the world has not tried. There is still a Kenyan-led, UN-affiliated force in Haiti, but it does not appear to exert any significant influence.
One possibility is that a dominant gang emerges and becomes the new government, albeit a highly oppressive one. Yet it is far from obvious that consolidation is in the works, as in many situations we observe multiple, warring drug gangs as a persistent outcome. Most likely, Haiti will have ceased to be a sustainable nation-state with an identifiable government. It would better be described as a state of Hobbesian anarchy.
Worth a ponder.
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