More on Artificial States

Before I read and respond to the many comments, I’d like first to offer my follow up thoughts of yesterday’s post on the breakdown of artificial states

As many readers may have noticed, there were a few things missing from the first version of my model on the breakdown of artificial states yesterday which was indeed done intentionally. First of all, I realized a better definition of artificial and natural state may be in order. The links should have been sufficient but allowe me to elaborate. An artificial state is one which is ethnically and/or religiously divided and not cohesive. The US is “divided” into many subgroups but that is the actual nature of our country. The 50 states all want to be part of America, the Soviet Republics quite obviously did not, nor did many of the dominions of the Romans, Mongols etc.

Also, a few more notes. The first “War” box can be internal or external. The state may of course be directly or indirectly involved. Neighboring countries at war may encourage the state to breakaway or join for example. Also, civil war can lead to stability and the example I had in mind was the American Civil War which did not lead to disintegration or instability.Divergent paths caused the North and South to increasingly become seperate and go different ways. Thus, we must ask the question, do civil wars only occur in artificial states? And is not “divided state” perhaps better than artificial? I think so.

There are two major questions that I still have:

1) Does a breakdown of authority lead to war or war to a breakdown of authority. Both is probably the best answer but what’s the best way to represent that?

2) Should “Failed State” indeed be added to the original chart with no UN intervention? When exactly does a state constitute a failed state? Somalia’s civil war is never ending so it’s already there for example. Yugoslavia’s civil war produced Croatia and Slovenia which have far fewer problems than the other “pieces.”

Additionally, some states will run this gauntlet a few times, losing a piece at a time before they finally are whittled down to a natural state. For example, Yugoslavia ran through the first chart, then Bosnia went through the second where the UN intervened. This is why I provided the dashed line from Stability back to Artificial state, as it may be necessary to go through this process a few times until the overall process is complete. Russia went through most of it all at once losing most of the Soviet Republics but is still embroiled in civil war in Chechnya.

3) Is it possible to merge the breakdown of isms and breakdown of artificial states? Should a third chart for “Failed States” be created?