Part with Partition? Perhaps of pertinence to the current Ukrainian situation

JB note: Partition's history may be troubled (see below; or consider the partitions of Poland), but arguably it has been a tool of U.S. foreign policy since our Declaration of Independence, when we parted from the "United" Kingdom. And let's not forget Richard Holbrooke and the Balkans -- and more recently, USG approval of the partition of Sudan. Not to speak, of course, of the two-state solution, in the case of Israel/Palestine, supported by the Obama administration.

From: Radha Kumar, The Troubled History of Partition," Foreign Affairs:

The argument for ethnic partition is not new, but its terms changed considerably over this century before settling upon the current rationale of the lesser of two evils. Before World War I, most partitions were effected for the needs of empire, to strengthen rule or simplify administration. After 1918, however, colonial empires were increasingly challenged, and subsequent partitions took place as part of a devolution of authority or a Cold War policy of spheres of influence. There were two distinct rationales for the partitions resulting from the fall of colonial empires: Wilsonian national self- determination, applied to Poland and Romania, and the British colonial policy of identifying irreconcilable nationhoods, applied in Ireland, India, and, as a delayed response, Cyprus and Palestine. Though both rationales took ethnic identity as an important determinant of political rights, Wilsonian policy supported ethnic self- determination as freedom from colonial rule, while the British reluctantly espoused partition as a lesser evil than constant civil war.

After the last attempt to ratify a partition -- Cyprus after the Turkish invasion in 1974 -- the notion that partition was an effective solution to ethnic conflict fell into disuse for a quarter-century. Paradoxically, its revival followed hard on the heels of German reunification and the potential integration of Europe that it heralded. In the first phase of the revival of partition theory, Wilsonian self- determination was invoked more often than the lesser-evil argument. Indeed, the prevailing feeling was that the end of the Cold War -- and the relatively peaceful dissolution of the Soviet Union -- meant that separations could be negotiated. In the early 1990s the most frequently cited example of a peaceful negotiated division was Czechoslovakia's "velvet divorce." When asked on The News Hour with Jim Lehrer in November 1995 whether the Dayton agreement was a partition, Assistant Secretary of State Richard C. Holbrooke said he preferred the example of Czechoslovakia's voluntary dissolution. But fewer people now refer to the Czech split. That the Czech Republic and Slovakia were relatively homogeneous and that dissolution of the federation did not require an alteration of internal borders or a substantial displacement of people make the comparison with Bosnia untenable*. A comparison between Bosnia and the partitions of Ireland, India, and Cyprus, or the incomplete partition of Palestine, would be better, because each involved ethnically mixed and dispersed populations and each was held to be a pragmatic recognition of irreconcilable ethnic identities.

See also.*Arguably the Czech-Slovak "way out" of their national problem (peaceful divorce) is an option for Ukraine in that Ukraine too is arguably "relatively homogeneous" -- as some commentators, intent on keeping Ukraine a unified state, themselves point out.