This leaves us with one of the great dilemma's faced by the West. Do you intervene (which in many cases would involve war as these nations are governed by dictators) or do you stand back and hope the people can solve it themselves - or maybe it is a shade of the two?
So-called humanitarian interventions are always undertaken with ulterior motives. In the past it was called "white man's burden" and "bringing religion to the heathen." Now it's called bringing "freedom" and "democracy." If you can, get hold of a copy of Wallerstein's slim book, "European Universalism." For example in Afghanistan, Karzai has called for NATO to stop bombing (which is killing civilians); a NATO spokesman afterwards announced that the bombing would continue. So here you have a case of a stooge ruler put in place by the US -- ostensibly to show that "democracy" was being restored -- and they don't even bother listening to him. The interventions are to plant stooge rulers and to make sure Western economic interests are served.
The problem of failed and failing states is partly a problem of a global structure where the West still dominates most of the world -- economically and militarily. The "Arab Spring" -- which the USD is trying to subvert -- is not only about booting out local rulers, but trying to change the the status quo where corrupt rulers do the bidding of the West (as has been the case in Egypt and Tunisia and remains the case elsewhere). This Western domination is changing slowly, with the advent of BRIC. In this global structure, the educational opportunities, the career possibilities, and the high wages are still in the West.
To go back after being trained in the West is still having to reconcile oneself to low wages. The best one can do is find employment with a multinational -- but the multinational will of course not pay by Western standards. The local companies pay even less. The prospects aren't that great -- local capital tends to be what we call "comprador capital" -- commission agents and junior partners to Western firms. And the career ladder in the multinationals is almost always confined to that country.
I would argue in Europe the Left is generally opposed to any intervention that involves military conflict - and whilst I understand that position, that effectively leaves the status quo in 99% of cases where dictatorships hold the power. This of course in turn leads the best and brightest from these nations to leave for the West and a better life.
Those dictators don't hold power in an international vacuum. They are propped up militarily by Western powers -- USA, and to a lesser extent Britain and France. The interventions are there to consolidate the hold of local stooges and maintain the status quo. When supporting them becomes untenable, then the West suddenly discovers how bad they really were, sheds some crocodile tears, and attempts to subvert popular feeling by sneaking in other stooges.
In brief: change the global system of
imperial control and migratory patterns will start to change.
Elements of the Right (I guess your Neocons/NuLabour types) would argue intervention is necessary. Of course we have seen the outcome of that is chaotic, unpredictable, expensive and not always a success - let alone the cost to human life.
Au contraire, mon ami: they're only a failure in terms of the avowed and ostensible motives ("nation building," "democratising," blah, blah, blah). In reality they're a necessary instrument of maintaining
imperial control. Why does the US not leave Afghanistan when even the Pentagon is saying there are not more than 100 Al-Qaeda members in the country? Why can Obama never explain what the "mission" is there?
Countries like India, which may have corruption problems at least have a good chance of fixing these problems, as they don't have dictatorships running the country, they have good education systems and a working civil service.
Countries like Iraq had sterling educational and health care systems (I lived there for a couple of years). And now it's buried in rubble.