Bangladesh, Dec. 21 -- South Sudans repeated slide toward the brink of civil war is often explained as a consequence of state weakness, institutional fragility, or unresolved ethnic tensions. These explanations, while partially true, miss the more uncomfortable reality: instability is not merely a failure of governance in South Sudan, but the very mechanism through which the country is ruled. Fourteen years after independence, the worlds youngest state remains trapped in a political order that depends on uncertainty, delay, and managed crisis for its survival. War is not an accident waiting to happen; it is a condition that the system is designed to keep possible, but never fully resolved.

Since gaining independence in 2011, South Sudan ...