Abstract

We underestimate corruption. These three words sum up the driving thesis of Sarah Chayes’ Thieves of State. In fact, we—including scholars, commentators and especially Western political and military leaders and advisers—underestimate almost every facet of corruption. We misread its pervasive extent and its networked, systemic nature. We fail to appreciate its crushing impact on those who suffer under its yoke. We downplay the sinister social, political, cultural, and even religious shifts it drives, and the way such dynamics fuel civil strife and armed conflict. And as a result of all of these underestimations, the international community (and the U.S. in particular) make catastrophic strategic miscalculations when engaging with struggling states like Iraq and Afghanistan.

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