The decades of fighting between rival warlords meant that the country was ill-equipped to deal with natural disasters such as drought, and around half a million people died in the Somali famines of 1992 and 2010-12.
And in Afghanistan, local politics all too often means warlords and Taliban mullahs.
We called him the Warlord, which we meant affectionately, just because of how imperious he was, from a very young age, imperious and tyrannical, really.
This means that the warlords have a strong interest in seeing that the eradication program remains a job only partly done.
"What does it mean to these warlords?
And most analysts believe Parliament — a fractious, unpredictable group that is dominated by former warlords — actually supports the prime minister, which means a high-level showdown may be coming next.
They gave the responsibility of capturing or killing Saddam -- I mean Osama bin Laden, to Afghan warlords, who just a few weeks before had been working with Osama bin Laden.
Yet the essential contradiction in American efforts to stabilize Afghanistan is that in the south, at least, winning the war on terrorism means consolidating the power of the very warlords who are the chief obstacle to state-building.
But warlords, even if they do not acquire power through democratic means, tend to provide some sort of political framework, often based on kinship ties or ethnic solidarity, that is seen as legitimate.
Since 2001, American and other Western officials have tried to buttress the central government under Mr. Karzai as a means of securing Afghanistan by weakening powerful regional warlords and bringing lucrative customs revenues into the state coffers.
The purpose of the accords is to establish a stable government, which means ending direct supplies of money and arms to warlords.
