The next state to collapse

I've just read a very good article on foreign affairs, looking at why countries collapse and how best to predict when such an event will happen. The article argues that the nations most likely to collapse are those that are fragile, countries that have not had any relative chaos. Turmoil and crisis can strengthen a country, it causes a nation to reevaluate and it learns how to manage crisis. Compare that to a nation that is fragile and aims to avoid any form of chaos or instability. These nations will have no experience with crisis management and so are more likely to be brought down.



For countries, fragility has five principal sources: A centralized governing system, an undiversified economy, excessive debt and leverage, a lack of political variability and no history of surviving past shocks. Applying these criteria, the world map looks a lot different. Disorderly regimes come out as safer bets than commonly thought and seemingly placid states turn out to be ticking time bombs.



So considering the above as well as any of your own thoughts, which nation do you think could go through such a collapse in the next few years? Predicting the future is a mugs game, but it's the end of the year, so we'll do it anyway. My money is on Saudi Arabia.