In the post-Soviet world, the idea of state weakness and fragility has become a major concern for policy makers and academics alike, particularly in Europe and the United States. Weak states threaten security because they allow non-state actors to organize and threaten the region and the world. Weak states threaten neighboring states because their inability to provide for their citizens creates domestic economic and political chaos that spills into neighboring states. However, the concept of state weakness is built upon even weaker conceptual foundations that render the idea unable to grasp the political dynamics of states. The concept of state weakness is based upon a functionalist paradigm of the state in which the state performs services “contracted” by society. The state provides security, economic development, and good governance that reflect the local interests of citizens. But power builds states. States are sites of political deals and compromises that often have little to do with broad citizen interests and more to do with particular interests. Power shapes citizen interests more often than citizens shape the state. The Yemeni transitional government shows that not only do particular domestic interests construct states, but states are also built upon the interests of international actors with their own particular interests. As one proponent of the state weakness concept proposed, states provide the international good of stability and predictability. In the Yemeni case, powerful foreign actors seeking their own security rather than Yemeni security construct the state, in the sense that the particular political agendas foreign actors strongly shape the transitional Yemeni state.