How Civilizations Fail

UCLA professor Jared Diamond takes the long view--what he calls "the 13,000-year perspective"--on the big questions, having drawn on physiology, evolutionary biology and biogeography over the course of his career. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Guns, Germs and Steel, and in his most recent book, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed, he argues that large-scale decline almost always has to do with resource management. For instance, the Easter Islanders destroyed the trees they needed to make canoes, and the Greenland Norse favored unsustainable farming over living from the sea. Not all of Diamond's examples are drawn from history; he claims the genocide in Rwanda could be interpreted as a conflict over dwindling resources. Nor are they physically remote. "Globalization means that societal declines are interlinked," he says. "Troubles in one country will be troubles in another country." We asked Diamond about where he thinks we stand today.

[Q] Playboy: In Collapse you list the world's leading environmental trouble spots, many of which also appear on your list of political trouble spots. Basically you suggest that environmental-resource problems lead to political problems. Sometimes the connection is obvious, as in Somalia. But what about Iraq?

[A] Diamond: Iraq once led the world in everything. This is where agriculture began (8500 B.C.), the first state governments arose (3500 B.C.) and the first bronze was made (3000 B.C.). Now it's at the bottom of the heap. It's been going downhill for a long time, partly because of deforestation and salinization, which were reported as early as 2500 B.C. near the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, where the first crops were grown. In the last century, colonization and the fall of the Ottoman Empire were factors, but if you want to know why Iraq and other Middle Eastern nations are no longer among the world's leading countries, the reasons for that long downward trajectory are predominantly environmental.

[Q] Playboy: What other scenarios should we worry about?

[A] Diamond: One scenario within the book's framework would be the spread of conditions such as those in Somalia and Haiti. Many governments have a good chance of failing within the next five years. Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country, already has separatist movements. Pakistan is a good candidate. Nepal could fail within a year.

[Q] Playboy: Nepal faces a Maoist insurgency. Can you really explain that in terms of environmental resources?

[A] Diamond: Yes. It's a poor, dissatisfied country. Compare Nepal with Bhutan, which has made different decisions.

Nepal decided to attract cheap mass tourism a couple of decades ago, and Bhutan went for limited upscale tourism. Nepal also engaged in deforestation. It's crowded, with sewage all over the place. When people are rich and satisfied, they don't support Maoist guerrillas. You have Maoist guerrillas in the mountains of Peru. You don't have them in Switzerland, Norway or Costa Rica.

[Q] Playboy: What would be a less gentle scenario?

[A] Diamond: When some states collapse, other states will see their interests affected and will intervene. If Nepal, which is adjacent to Tibet, collapses, it's unlikely the Chinese will stand by and allow it. It's even less likely that India will stand by. You'll get some interesting stuff if both the Chinese and the Indians decide to intervene.

[Q] Playboy: What policies do you suggest the U.S. government should enact to stave off problems?

[A] Diamond: We should get involved earlier and try to solve long-term problems rather than wait until after a disaster. Since September 2001 we've had two major military interventions aimed at short-term problems. Attempts at state building in Iraq came only after the short-term goal had been accomplished. Quite apart from being idealistic, these interventions are prohibitively expensive, and about 25 countries are waiting to be the next Iraq. We just can't afford to do it. It would be much cheaper and more efficacious to do things aimed at preventing states from failing. And people becoming desperate is what pushes states to failure.

[Q] Playboy: How can we forestall that?

[A] Diamond: Address three things: public health, the environment and family planning. In regard to family planning, the U.S. doesn't just fail to do good; it does harm. The present administration's policy is to oppose use of U.S. funds for family-planning purposes. But population growth is one of the big background problems. People in third world countries tell me they would like to have fewer children. I was in the most remote village I've ever visited in Indonesian New Guinea, and at the airstrip was an Indonesian government poster that listed different means of family planning--condoms and so forth. The people asked me how they could access them. They didn't have the money. Someone I know there had his first child when he was 13; the last time I visited he was 22 and had eight children. He has to feed them, and he'd like to send them all to school.

Interview by Rob Levine