Small Wars Journal

If It Happened There… the Government Shutdown

Tue, 10/01/2013 - 11:52am

If It Happened There… the Government Shutdown by Joshua Keating, Slate.

The typical signs of state failure aren’t evident on the streets of this sleepy capital city. Beret-wearing colonels have not yet taken to the airwaves to declare martial law. Money-changers are not yet buying stacks of useless greenbacks on the street.

But the pleasant autumn weather disguises a government teetering on the brink. Because, at midnight Monday night, the government of this intensely proud and nationalistic people will shut down, a drastic sign of political dysfunction in this moribund republic…

Read on.