If resources determined a nation’s fate, then resource-scarce Japan would be poor and at war while the Congo would be rich and at peace. Congo is astonishingly rich when it comes to its lands, minerals, forests, oil, and gas.51 There are many reasons why the Congo is so dysfunctional. It is massive—it is the second largest African nation in area, behind only Algeria—and difficult to govern as a single country. It was colonized by the Belgians, who fled the country in the early 1960s without establishing strong government institutions, like an independent judiciary and a military.
