Westphalian syndrome

I have been trying my hardest to write a post about terrorism. I've not been able to work the intro quite right - a number of things have inspired the topic - but something remains missing. Perhaps a conclusion? I am still not certain what I think of the subject. I will get back to it, eventually.

But for now, you may have noticed recently that the postwar cascade of countries has taken on its next microstate, the new 'nation' of Kosovo. It is the latest in a series of emergent nations - slowed, but not stopped, by the turn of the millenium and the advent of the global new order (I do not necessarily say that in a conspiratorial sense, mind; its architects take no pains to keep themselves or their objectives hidden anyway). Lately East Timor, Montenegro and now Kosovo have taken a big step forward in their quest for...

Well, in their quest.

I remember vaguely an article in Time, roundabout the end of 1999, which asked if by 2100 the very concept of the nation would even be meaningful anymore - and if it was, if nations would be so small and fractious as to be irrelevant. As Kosovo joins, haltingly, the community of world states, I think that the question grows in legitimacy. With the notable exception of the United States, which (until fairly recently, anyway) possessed an homogenous and well-assimilated population, the tale of the nation-state has invariably been a story of the creation of immutable and intransitive borders to bracket the greatest mass of a certain people, by which they would then realize "self-rule."

It was with the greatest and most unparalleled shock, after the First World War and into the present day, that the world discovered what a silly idea this was. Ethnic strife had long been a feature of European politics, especially amongst the Austro-Hungarians and Ottomans; the first world war touched off as a result of it. But for Hitler the problem would have confronted policymakers long before the time it finally did, but in the shape of a long slow burn rather than the heinous convulsions of the postwar era. But Hitler did want to take over Europe (despite what the British Foreign Office believed), and the resulting struggle ruined not only Germany but most of the colonizing powers. Of the five - Britain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Portugal - only Portugal was unscathed by the war, and in tandem with a military dictatorship managed to hold on to their colonies into the mid-1970s. The rest, shattered and bankrupted by six years of Clausewitz's wet dream, began tossing off most of their colonies just as soon as they proved they could walk. (Obviously, with a number of exceptions.)

Here the problems started. The ironic thing is that in Africa, for instance, British and French diplomats were less worried about the country's relationship with the Soviets than with their opposite number in the Entente Cordiale. That agreement, which itself emerged as a result of the scramble for Africa, completed the partitioning of the continent and solidified the borders as they were today. Despite that new cordiality, when the time came for the postcolonial nations to make their own destinies there were few cases in which collaboration between nations resulted in a rational national border encompassing a group or groups that might properly be called (and might properly consider themselves) a nation. In fact I cannot think of one. In the best cases nations emerged shaped by the contours of certain navigable rivers or other geographic quirks (often ones that determined colonial ownership in the first place). More often they were simply lines on a map inspired by the whim of imperial history or, worse still, sheer caprice.

The next fifty years would serve to amply demonstrate the folly of the postcolonial nation-state. In Europe, where nation-states had developed only over long and bloody centuries, there were still constant difficulties over this diaspora or that, here or there; but at least there was a general settlement over the political situation. (Not enough, surely, to prevent Poland and Germany being shifted 100 km. westward; but a stability, to be sure.) Most of Africa and Asia inherited none of this stability; in few places had there been what might properly be called a nation-state at any time in history, and a concept a thousand years in the making could not simply be projected across the world and multifarious political cultures. Chaos inevitably resulted. The strongmen and warlords who seized power in the postcolonial regimes were the unavoidable result of independence (though no cause for independence to have been withheld - in few cases could an argument hold up that a particular place was somehow unready, though you could make a case here or there) . The new nation-states, however, cobbled together with only their name and European recognition to sustain them, legitimated and amplified these struggles by ensuring that the only way to live in security was to possess political power for yourself.

And yet after this blood-letting - after Sierra Leone and the African War, after Uganda and Bosnia, after East Timor and India and Pakistan (over and over again), not only is political statism not seen as outmoded but, indeed, it remains the future. Now every ethnic group with a historical gripe or a modern grievance believes that it, too, not only has the right for a nation but the need for one. The fundamental error of basing political representation for groups around geography has not only not been realized, it has been enthusiastically embraced amongst the political elite in the first world. And why shouldn't it? It is a crucial part of the continued dominance of the first world by the third.

This seems counterintuitive, that "independence" should somehow more deeply shackle a place to outside rulers than occupation does. But it makes sense. Take the example of the British or French. The British and French did not take over Africa because they particularly cared for it - rather they feared simply that the other would. As Voltaire quipped about Poland, Africa was easier swallowed than digested - eventually the cost of defending and administering these new lands became clear and colonialism became in many places a subsidy. Being freed of them not only saved Britain and France money by divorcing them of their obligations - a crucial point, as a nation-state by definition is freed from obligations to or from another save those entered into explcitly - it opened new diplomatic opportunities. Rather than ruling, say, Benin explicitly, and incurring perhaps a cost of millions of francs per year in administering it, the granting of independence allowed administration to be turned into "foreign aid" which was then hung like a knife to the throat of the newly "independent" nations.

In turn, the new nations would be quickly shuffled into every international organization under the sun, not so their voices could be heard but so that France or Britain could bolster their voting blocs. Incidentally, in this way an organization like the UN can be rendered toothless - the bigger it is the less capable it is of international consensus, and the less likely it is to do anything. And the third world is essentially enslaved to this system, because by divorcing itself from its obligations there the first world can instead make use of its own former neglect to continue to indirectly exert its authority. Independence divorces a nation like Britain from the responsibility they would otherwise have incurred to improve the lot of the peoples in their colonies, and instead allows them to extract concessions from local leaders (more often than not comically-weak democratic opportunists or local strongmen) using as leverage the same money and assistance they should be providing anyway. At the same time it very roughly pushes a people - heterogenous and often with greater animus to other local ethnic groups than to the colonial power - into the very harsh world of Westphalia, and opens the door to any manner of exploitation by companies and nations alike all too happy to exploit the tenuous economic situation of such countries by extracting from it natural resources or unfinished goods for completion and export abroad.

Your initial reaction to this argument might be that it is simply a modified white man's burden. On the contrary, my argument is precisely that the system of nation-states means that the independence granted in its form is false and fleeting and simply a way for colonizers to get out of paying what is owed. True independence would be that colonization had never happened. It ought never have happened - but it did. There should have been the assumption that if you break it, you've bought it, and that a responsibility then existed to invest your own resources to improve the peoples on whose peace you've thoughtlessly trampled. It is not about obligation but rather reciprocity for the result of colonialism.

The second reaction is stronger, and expands the debate into the present day. The argument here is less about colonialism (though that still plays a role) than about the benefits of self-rule to a people. This is that independence is more conducive to a responsive, responsible government than that provided by an occupying or distant power, however legitimate its rule. Along with this is the Amartya Sen principle - that there are not famines (and a host of other social ills) in a rigorous democracy with a free press. This is all true, and local rule is generally better than distant rule (India, certainly, would be a textbook example of that). But unfortunately the world gives scant leeway to efficient generalities; the fact is that few governments in the third world possess the resources necessary for responsive rule, if they do not give way to petty dictators first. Despite positive advances in the past few decades, the prognosis for responsible government in the third world (responsible to the people, not in a general sense) does not appear good. Even if it was better, the emergent nations like Kosovo, Montenegro, East Timor &c. generally have small populations and few resources, with even less in the way of advanced economic capabilities. Building them takes time; unemployment and resource exploitation is immediate.

This gets into the question of viability. Advocates for the independence of new states generally think little or nothing about the economic viability of their new country. This is often so because their principle concern is for the power that independence would give their elite, or if they are more romantic some misguided historical and cultural ideal; these are worth the price to separatists even if it comes at the expense of a better deal in their current status. I would wish to deal with that in two parts in order to expand my argument to the first world. Vocal minorities in the latter tend to be subsidized by national governments wishing to avoid sectarianism or secession; hence Scotland is comparatively overfunded by the London government, which is why the Scottish Nationalists are able to profligately spend money without worrying about such pesky issues as defence (or foreign aid!). At the same time you're brought to the perverse place where many English want Scotland to go, under the perception that the Scots are acting as freeloaders and receiving more for it (indeed, the Scots and Welsh are better represented at every level than the English, though more government is not necessarily better government). Ask the Scots what they'll rely upon for funding without the expansive tax base of southern England, and their talk invariably turns to oil. More on that in a moment.

This is not necessarily so in the third world; the Kurds, for example, (or the Kosovars for that matter) can hardly be said to be the recipients of much special treatment and have legitimate goals to which independence might lead. They are more legitimate candidates for independence in that such a move might immediately and concretely improve their lot. However, they risk falling into the same aid and trade traps as do decolonized nations that I discussed above; this is at least partly why Russia and China have been so vociferously opposed to the independence of Kosovo, fearing it will be yet another vote for the West in the UN (among others). Indeed they do risk becoming puppets to a stronger regional power.

Worse, economic viability really must be a factor in these calculations: their people will not necessarily be better off, especially if GDP per capita decreases through independence and there is no sound basis by which it can be restored. It doesn't really surprise one that independence movements from the Acehnese to the Kurds to the Scots always emphasize a single exportable primary good (almost always oil). Because, this day in age, you really want most to have a country whose economy is based on oil as a long-term strategy. Even oil companies are beginning to move away from oil as a long-term commodity; and in any event they do not make money off the oil but rather upon its refinement into secondary goods, something that the Kurds will not be able to do to their advantage. And even if you can secure independence on the basis of a natural resource, how long will that give you? Rarely is a plan articulated past that point to establish the economic viability of a new nation.

I risk limiting independence here to only wealthy, economically-prosperous and yet aggrieved nations. I assure you this is not my point. The criteria for "independence" is always that it is the desire of a certain polity; international recognition is only an adjunct to that, albeit a critical one. What I do here is emphasize the many problems associated with that concept, especially the fact that independence is not really what it purports to be at all. There should be a more rigorous standard for admission into the community of nations, especially where it would involve letting a colonial or occupying power off the hook for its misrule. I have not outlined the generally negative impact of the nation-state; suffice it to say I believe in it, and I think the arguments above can be extrapolated to that end quite easily.

What could be done? Well, I am enthusiastic about a few developments. The first is multinational political groupings. The African Union immediately springs to mind. The AU has been muscular, forceful and broadly effective on issues like Darfur and Zimbabwe, despite its relative youth as an organization (I believe it is no more than six years old). Multinationalism is the only way to engage these problems brought on by transnational ethnic groupings and rivalries, and the only effective way to resist deprivations by other powerful national and multinational groups. Part of the reason corporations are so strong is that they are more monolithic than governments and are encumbered by no borders. For the third world to resist they must learn to mimic some of these features. Connected to this is the evolution of existing national groupings based on shared history, such as the British Commonwealth. Initially it was essentially a mouthpiece for British diplomacy; but now it possesses a more independent spirit as a body and is not leashed to London's beckon call. That is not to say the organization is a lasting or universally positive one; but Sierra Leone proved that it is not always bad to have a great power watching your back, however belatedly. In any event it is better than an organization like NATO or SEATO, which is self-evidently military and coercive.

Eventually, nation-states have got to begin to evolve beyond themselves. Colonialism cannot be undone; neither can de-colonization. Both were evils in their own ways, the former for what it was and the latter for how it was done. But it is done and no amount of foreign aid will make right what transpired. What is required is political and diplomatic innovation, a fundamental redefinition of what sovereignty itself means. I can't speak to what it should be, though I think a move away from the geographical and spatial and towards the social, societal and cultural is where it will and should go. I think it will happen, too, simply of necessity - the nation-state is outmoded and has far outlasted its usefulness, and a combination of multinational corporations and advances in global communications mean that the nation-state will either evolve or it will go under. My fear now is that it will evolve too late for the many nations that Westphalia left behind.