Although the United States is hardly becoming a “failed state,” it did rank eighteenth (among the 178 nations of the world). In other words, there were seventeen other countries (including Iceland,...

Although the United States is hardly becoming a “failed state,” it did rank eighteenth (among the 178 nations of the world). In other words, there were seventeen other countries (including Iceland, Slovenia, and Portugal) that were ranked even less likely than the United States of becoming a failed state. Despite the fact that the United States remains the world’s largest economy, how do you explain its relatively low ranking?