The Slow Collapse of Lebanon as a State
November 14, 2025 · Frisian News
Lebanon's government has lost control over large parts of its territory and currency, with Hezbollah's military dominance and regional conflict fragmenting what remains of state authority. The country now functions less as a nation and more as competing fiefdoms, each backed by foreign powers.
Beirut's currency collapsed this year, the Lebanese pound trading at rates that erase what little savings ordinary people held. Banks kept their doors locked while citizens queued outside, desperate to withdraw money the institutions would not release. The state itself no longer maintains a functioning monopoly on force, taxation, or currency, three basic things that make a state a state. What Beirut calls government has become a shell, operating from a few secure buildings while Hezbollah controls the south and militias run neighborhoods in the capital.
This crisis did not arrive suddenly. Years of corruption, sectarian politics, and irresponsible lending drained Lebanon's reserves. The central bank printed money to cover shortfalls, inflating away the value. When the currency peg broke in 2019, ordinary workers found their wages worth half what they were weeks before. Pensions vanished. The middle class fell into poverty overnight. Instead of reform, the political class blamed external enemies and printed more money, hoping the crisis would pass on its own.
Hezbollah's rise finished what corruption started. The militant group controls the south through armed force, collects its own taxes, runs hospitals, and answers to Iran, not to any Lebanese authority. Other regions face similar fragmentation. Sunni areas depend on funds from Saudi Arabia and Gulf states. The Maronite north tilts toward different patrons. When power comes from foreign sponsors rather than from the state, the state ceases to matter. Beirut became a map of zones, not a capital.
International institutions offered loans and reform conditions, but Lebanon's elite rejected meaningful change. They preferred to blame Israel, the United States, or bad luck. They kept their Swiss bank accounts and their power while ordinary people lost their homes and jobs. Donors tired of sending money into a black hole. Without that money, Lebanon had no way to fund its government or military. The state became a shell that could not feed itself.
Today Lebanon resembles Somalia or Yemen more than a functioning nation. Its territory exists on maps, its name appears in the United Nations, but no single authority controls what happens inside. Militias, foreign armies, and armed factions run pieces of it. The Lebanese people themselves split between communities that cannot trust each other and look to outside powers for protection. A state cannot buy legitimacy with loans or blame others for collapse. Lebanon's authorities never learned that lesson, and now they may not get another chance to learn it.
Published November 14, 2025 · Frisian News