The war in Afghanistan has cost us billions of dollars and countless lives. But what if there was a better way to address potential conflicts and looming national-security challenges on the front end — and in a more cost-effective way?

The next generation of conflicts and humanitarian disasters may take place in countries not familiar to most Americans but that we know right now to be on the verge of collapse.

Yemen, population 23.8 million; Guinea, population 10 million; Guinea-Bissau, population 1.5 million (small but on the fast track to becoming Africa’s first narco-state): Become familiar with these countries, for their collapse could lead to major conflict and disaster.

Extreme poverty, extremism, political instability, weak governance, and conflict are pushing these countries to the verge of state failure. And when states fail, it creates the types of conditions in which a terrorist group can plot, plan, and execute terrorist attacks, i.e. Afghanistan. When a state collapses, the worst types of humanitarian disasters can occur —such as the genocide in Sudan.

We know what countries are seriously in trouble — where poverty, disease, and conflict afflict so many — but if we don’t do something now, we’ll pay for it later. Right now, we’re debating whether to send more troops to Afghanistan. If you’re curious about where the next big conflict will be in maybe in two, five, or 10 years, look no further than the states that soon might fail.

The term “failed state” is a powerful and searing way to describe the condition of a country. What I mean by the term is those countries who no longer serve their people.

Without going into a methodological exercise, failed states have essentially two criteria. They quantitatively and qualitatively deliver no or a low level of services to their people, and they have lost a monopoly on violence.

Take a second to think about the world that we live in: more than 1 billion people living in extreme poverty, millions dying from diseases that rich countries have long known cures for, a world threatened by climate catastrophe.

The roots of our security challenges and threats lie in these inequalities. The root of conflicts that spill over borders far away and lead to American involvement lie in weak, corrupt, and unaccountable governments.

The question is then, what is the best way for the United States to achieve its national-security challenges in the 21st century? Part of that answer is doing more to address the problems that afflict the weakest and most fragile countries in the world.

Our world is a complex place, full of challenges and problems and crises right around the corner. But it remains within our power to do something about them. The United States can’t solve all these problems alone. But we can do more, and we can work with other nations to do more and be more effective.

It is absolutely critical that the United States not only increase its foreign aid but bring how we deliver and administer it into the 21st century. The world has changed dramatically since 1961; unfortunately, much of the assistance we deliver to poor countries is guided by the 1961 Foreign Assistance Act.

We should also provide technical assistance to countries emerging out of conflict, and we should strengthen the United Nations to better fulfill its humanitarian and peacekeeping role. We must address the poverty in sub-Sarahan African, the conflict in the Horn of Africa, the instability in the Maghreb. If we don’t, we all will pay for it later.

We’ve already spent billions of dollars in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

In order to avoid similarly quixotic conflicts in the future, our generation must pay closer attention to failed states.