The main goal of the course is to endow students with the basic understanding of statehood - its genesis, semantics, evolution, and contemporary deformations (the so-called "Humpty-Dumpty"). The lecture and discussion will be focused on the process of state failure, and "failed states" as a category in a cause-and-effect approach. "Failed states" is a catch-all term used to describe a post-Cold War security agenda. However, with the lack of a universal definition and criteria for ailing states, no one knows exactly what they stand for. Finally, apart from that, a strategic challenge persists: what to do with them?