Is there a vacuum of Legitimacy?

Babylonia was technically pacified ten years ago. The federal republic of brazil, i think, doesn't have the necessary methos or legitimacy that comes with expenditure to force its will on these places. And you have these local, i guess, warlords, essentially, who, by virtue of being outside of productive society, are able to enforce,. first of all, because they are engaged with something very unproductive, right?