State Negligence and Buried Secrets

State negligence is the failure to recognize a risk or potential danger that should have been recognized, whereas recklessness is the conscious disregard of risk. The presence of risk is the common denominator – and the relevant element of carelessness. When an incident occurs, apparently unique principles apply to expand the normally applied mistakes in offenses. A state becomes the enemy of good public policy, presidents and their appointees are uninterested or unqualified to manage the mess they have rather created, and they themselves cannot undermine effective administration. The majority of the failures are caused by errors of omission rather than commission.

Some negligence is clearly more obvious than others. Vision combined with execution is a clear driver of success, and its absence is a recipe for failure. The study of situations in which something has gone wrong has always been, at least implicitly, a part of States negligence. Political events and decisions typically garner far more scholarly attention when viewed as failures than when viewed as successes. It’s no surprise that many of the most well-studied events have been linked to ‘disastrous’ failures or consequences.

The state typically wields considerable power. It is difficult for society to confront them because, in contrast to the rest of society, these groups act coherently due to a limited number of members and a shared goal, so they are the ones who have to bear the consequences of the States negligence and buried secrets.