As the Trump Administration imposes an arms embargo on South Sudan, it’s worth reflecting on just what went wrong in the world’s newest state—and whether any other outcome was possible in the first place.

Boko Haram may be working to reestablish a centuries-old caliphate that once ruled over territory in Nigeria and its neighbors.

Nigeria is facing down a triumphant Boko Haram that grows ever more powerful. Is it now fighting not only for its sovereign territory but for its future as a state?

Hundreds of civilians are being killed in South Sudan in an upsurge of ethnic violence. The same ethnic tensions that ripped South Sudan away from the north are now tearing it apart as well.

South Sudan was never stable. It was never on a trajectory toward becoming a normal Westphalian state, no matter what foreign observers hoped and wished.