Archive for August 16th, 2008

The program in which I am at Georgetown, the School of Foreign Service, is famous for the required course entitled “Map of the Modern World.” The “course designed to provide regional overviews of the evolution of the world political map since 1800, including major nationalist, ethnic, boundary, and territorial conflicts and regional tension areas.” With only one grade, much of the course comes down to freshman SFSers huddled around tables quizzing each other on obscure countries, their colonial histories and territorial disputes. (What is the significance of Angola’s bifurcation?”) To the best of my knowledge, the course is unique in its scope and leaves students with a holistic understanding of the world’s geopolitical setting.

One of the defining questions of geopolitics, and international relations more generally, is national sovereignty. The idea that nations are bounded regions beholden to justifiable self-governance is fundamental to the international system. Yet, it is not universally and consistently recognized. In an op-ed for the LA Times, two graduate students, point out the incongruous application of sovereignty by the United States. We support separatist movements in Kosovo, but condemn them in South Ossetia.

If the United States wishes to avoid [Russia's regional aggression] like this in the future, we need to be more consistent about how we treat fledgling independence movements. Beyond Kosovo and South Ossetia, why do we encourage the independence of the southern Sudanese but condemn the uprisings of the Kurds in eastern Turkey? Why do we speak up for the Tibetans in China but tune out the Basques in Spain?

The authors point out that our approach seeks to weaken competitors (Russia), while supporting allies (Spain). While this approach (realism) seems to make sense, it weakens our principled stance for sovereignty. Self-determinism movements around the world play close attention to how major powers approach other separatists. For example, Taiwan is known to be an ardent supporter of self-determination due to their relationship with China. Canada, on the other hand, wants to avoid a precedent which will see Ontario Quebec go its own way.

In the end, the authors argue for partitioning existing states as only a last resort. Good-faith efforts at bringing minorities into the government are much safer options. History shows that new states lead to more disputes, locally and abroad.

And, besides, an entire class of SFS students don’t want to memorize a whole new nation for their test.