Rogue state

Rogue state is a controversial term applied by some international theorists to states they consider threatening to the world's peace. This means meeting certain criteria, such as being ruled by authoritarian regimes that severely restrict human rights, sponsor terrorism, and seek to proliferate weapons of mass destruction. The term is used most by the United States, though the US State Department officially quit using the term in 2000. However, it has been applied by other countries as well.

Rogue states can also be differentiated from 'pariah states' such as Burma (Myanmar) and Zimbabwe who allegedly abuse the human rights of their populations while not being considered a tangible threat beyond their own borders, although the terms have been used interchangeably.

A common presumption applied to rogue states is that they do not necessarily behave rationally or in their own best interests. In political theory it is generally believed that a stable nation, ruled by a leadership that is subject to broad scrutiny (though not necessarily democratic scrutiny), will tend to act in its own best interests and will not take actions that are directly contrary to its own interests, particularly not to its own survival. Rogue states, however, may not be subject to this assumption and, as such, relations with them may be more complicated and unpredictable.

United States usage
As early as July 1985, President Reagan had asserted that "we are not going to tolerate … attacks from outlaw states by the strangest collection of misfits, loony tunes, and squalid criminals since the advent of the Third Reich," but it fell to the Clinton administration to elaborate this concept. In the 1994 issue of Foreign Affairs, National Security Advisor Anthony Lake claimed "the reality of recalcitrant and outlaw states that not only choose to remain outside the family [of democratic nations] but also assault its basic values. Lake labeled five regimes as "rogue states": North Korea, Cuba, Iraq, Iran and Libya. In theory, at least, to be classified as a rogue, a state had to commit four transgressions: pursue weapons of mass destruction, support terrorism, severely abuse its own citizens, and stridently criticize the United States.  While four of the listed rogue states met all these transgressions, Cuba, though still known for severely abusing its citizens and its strident criticism of the United States, no longer met all the transgressions required for a rogue state and was put on the list solely because of the political influence of the American Cuban community and specifically that of the Cuban American National Foundation. Syria and Pakistan, two nations which were hardly regarded by the United States as paragons of rectitude, avoided being added to the list because the United States hoped that Damascus could play a constructive role in the Arab-Israeli peace process, and because Washington had long maintained close relations with Islamabad—a vestige of the Cold War.

Three other nations, Serbia and Montenegro, Sudan and Afghanistan, would also be treated as rogue states as well. The US State Department at times labeled Serbia and Montenegro as a rogue state because Slobodan Milosevic, who served as President of Serbia between the years 1989 and 1997, had violated the rights of some of his nation's citizens, including but not limited to accusations of genocide in Bosnia, leading to the Bosnian Genocide Case.

In August 1995, the Croatian military forced Serbian Armed Forces, withdraw from Croatian territory ethnically cleansing the Serbian population in the process, and NATO now focused its attention on launching a major offensive operation against Serbian Armed Forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina. On August 30, 1995, 1995 NATO air campaign in Bosnia and Herzegovina was initiated and Serbian Armed Forces soon withdrew from the vicinity of Sarajevo. On December 14, 1995, the Dayton Agreement was signed and the Yugoslav Wars temporarily ended for a few more years.

The United States employed several tools to isolate and punish rogue states. Tough unilateral economic sanctions, often at congressional behest, were imposed on or tightened against Iran, Libya, Cuba, Sudan, and Afghanistan. The United States selectively used air-power against Iraq for years after the conclusion of the Gulf War in 1991. Cruise missiles were fired at Afghanistan and Sudan in retaliation for terrorist attacks against U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in September 1998. In February 1999, NATO launched a massive air-bombing campaign in Serbia. In June 1999, after enduring three months of heavy NATO bombing, the Milosevic regime withdrew from Kosovo.

The Central Intelligence Agency supported a variety of covert actions designed to depose Saddam Hussein, while Congress approved the Iraq Liberation Act in 1998 aimed at providing Iraqi opposition groups with increased financial assistance. Several leading Republicans who would occupy high positions in the George W. Bush administration publicly urged President Clinton in February 1998 to recognize the Iraqi National Congress (INC) as the provisional government of Iraq. Some of these critics, including Paul Wolfowitz and Robert Zoellick, hinted that U.S. ground forces might ultimately be required to help the INC oust Saddam. In all of these anti-rogue efforts, however, Washington found it exceedingly difficult to persuade other nations (with the partial exception of Britain) to support its policies of ostracism and punishment.

In the last six months of the Clinton administration, United States Secretary of State Madeleine Albright announced that the term "rogue state" would be abolished in June 2000, in favour of "states of concern," as three of the rogue states (Libya, Iran, and North Korea) no longer met the four transgressions which defined a rogue state. In October 2000, Milosevic was ousted from power and the US officially reopened its embassy in Serbia and Montenegro. The final international sanctions against the nation, which had been in place since the passage of United Nations Security Council resolution 724 in December 1991, were lifted in January 2001 and in 2006, Serbia and Montenegro officially dissolved into two separate states. The U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 ousted the Taliban from power and the US government, which no longer saw the nation's government as a threat, drastically relations with the country. The regime of Saddam Hussein was overt following after the U.S.-led 2003 invasion of Iraq and relations with Iraq dramatically improved afterwards. Libya was removed from the State Sponsor of Terrorism list in 2006 after achieving success through diplomacy. Relations with Libya also became more mutual following the eight month Libyan civil war in 2011, which resulted in the National Transitional Council ousting longtime Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi from power. In October 2000, Slobodan Milosevic, the Serbian president who played a leading role in the instigating the Yugoslav Wars, was ousted from power and the US officially reopened its embassy in the Serbia and Montenegro. The final sanctions against the nation were lifted in January 2001 and in 2006, Serbia and Montenegro officially dissolved into two separate states.

Later terms
In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, the Bush administration returned to using a similar term. The concept of "rogue states" was replaced by the Bush administration with the "Axis of Evil" concept (gathering Iraq, Iran, and North Korea). U.S. President George W. Bush first spoke of this "Axis of Evil" during his January 2002 State of the Union Address. More terms, such as Beyond the Axis of Evil and Outposts of Tyranny, would follow suit.

As the U.S. government remains the most active proponent of the "rogue state" expression, the term has received much criticism from those who disagree with U.S. foreign policy. Critics charge that "rogue state" merely means any state that is generally hostile to the U.S., or even one that opposes the U.S. without necessarily posing a wider threat. Some others, such as author William Blum, have written that the term is also applicable to the U.S. and Israel. Both the concepts of rogue states and the "Axis of Evil" have been criticized by certain scholars, including philosopher Jacques Derrida and linguist Noam Chomsky, who considered it more or less a justification of imperialism and a useful word for propaganda.

In Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower, William Blum claims that the United States of America, because of its foreign policy, is itself a rogue state.

Usage in other countries
While the term is used in the media of many countries, it has only been officially used by the United Kingdom and Ukraine. However, the expression has been criticized by France, Russia, and China.