Additional realistic country breakups (more-or-less) along ethnic lines?

[WolfBear]

Which additional realistic country breakups (more-or-less) along ethnic lines can you think of? In real life, we had Austria-Hungary, the German Empire (losing its Poles, Lithuanians, Danes, Czechs, French, and Walloons), the Ottoman Empire (sort of, since it lost its Arabs but kept a lot of its Kurds), the Russian Empire (Brest-Litovsk, though only a part of it actually permanently lasted before the whole Brest-Litovsk order was essentially restored as a result of the Soviet Union's collapse and breakup in 1991), Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia (sort of, since the Bosniaks got way too large of a country), and the Soviet Union breaking up more-or-less along ethnic lines. Which additional countries could have realistically shared this fate, and ideally in fairly recent history--so, 1850 or later?

Iraq was, of course, a possible candidate for this, but if it survived ISIS, its unity is likely to permanently survive. Afghanistan I don't think is realistic unless there's some way to have it occur as a result of one of the World Wars since the Pashtuns in Afghanistan might simply be too strong and might thus successfully overpower any separatist movements there without any foreign intervention. Ethiopia is another possible candidate for this depending on how exactly its civil war will progress in the future. However, which additional realistic examples of this could you think of? Ideally scenarios that occur in 1850 or later, of course.

 

[Free-Stater 101]

Counting its ethnicities it's possible Spain could fracture into multiple nations the same could go for Russia.

 

[WolfBear]

Counting its ethnicities it's possible Spain could fracture into multiple nations the same could go for Russia.

Spain is possible, though the central government's opposition to separatism there makes things more difficult. The Basques tried an armed struggle for independence but ended up failing.

Russia is actually relatively homogeneous (around 85% Slavic) and I don't think that anyone other than the Chechens and perhaps the Ingush would actually want to secede.

Scottish and perhaps even Northern Irish independence from the UK is another realistic possibility at some future point in time, of course.

 

[Skallagrim]

Belgium is always a contender for this.

 

[PsihoKekec]

Nigeria has been a contender for decades as is Kongo (the bigger one), not to mention Ethiopia. Either would be very bloody.

 

[Skallagrim]

We can really include almost all of Africa.

South Africa is rapidly heading for complete self-destruction as we speak, so that's presumably going to be a major example in the relatively near future...

 

[S'task]

Qing China basically did this when you look at it compared to modern China. Most notably it lost Mongolia, Tibet, and Nepal, which are ethnicallly seperate from the Han Chinese core, and nearly lost Manchuria as well. Had things played out differently in the 20th century you could have seen even further fracturing of China along ethnic lines with some of the Western Provinces forming Uygerstan, Mongolia being larger by taking Inner Mongolia with it, and an independent Manchuria surviving WW2.

Japan could have potentially lost the northern islands to make a seperate Ainuko in the aftermath of World War 2, especially if instead of nuclear bombs WW2 had ended with a joint Soviet/US invasion of the Japanese islands, as the Soviets would have ended up in firm control of those northern islands and likely would have set up a Soviet puppet state similar to North Korea whilenthe US set up a puppet republic on the rest of Japan similar to the OTL.

Turkey is another possible contender. The entire Iraq/Syria/Turkey area could have been redrawn with a Kurdistan had the US wanted to in the aftermath of the US invasion of Iraq, and in some better timeline that's probably what happened, but as it stands now status quo ante appears to be holding... at least as far as country borders go.

Morroco has broken along those lines or could depending on how you look at it and if you recognize Western Sahara or not.

Great Britian of course could lose Scotland and Northern Ireland, but I have my doubts on the Scottish at least. N. Ireland could easily have ended up with the rest of Ireland had things in the 20th century gone differently.

 

[WolfBear]

Qing China basically did this when you look at it compared to modern China. Most notably it lost Mongolia, Tibet, and Nepal, which are ethnicallly seperate from the Han Chinese core, and nearly lost Manchuria as well. Had things played out differently in the 20th century you could have seen even further fracturing of China along ethnic lines with some of the Western Provinces forming Uygerstan, Mongolia being larger by taking Inner Mongolia with it, and an independent Manchuria surviving WW2.

Japan could have potentially lost the northern islands to make a seperate Ainuko in the aftermath of World War 2, especially if instead of nuclear bombs WW2 had ended with a joint Soviet/US invasion of the Japanese islands, as the Soviets would have ended up in firm control of those northern islands and likely would have set up a Soviet puppet state similar to North Korea whilenthe US set up a puppet republic on the rest of Japan similar to the OTL.

Turkey is another possible contender. The entire Iraq/Syria/Turkey area could have been redrawn with a Kurdistan had the US wanted to in the aftermath of the US invasion of Iraq, and in some better timeline that's probably what happened, but as it stands now status quo ante appears to be holding... at least as far as country borders go.

Morroco has broken along those lines or could depending on how you look at it and if you recognize Western Sahara or not.

Great Britian of course could lose Scotland and Northern Ireland, but I have my doubts on the Scottish at least. N. Ireland could easily have ended up with the rest of Ireland had things in the 20th century gone differently.

Manchurians are not ethnically different from Chinese. Not in the 20th century, at least. Han Chinese have long outnumbered Manchus in Manchuria:

Chuang Guandong - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Are the Ainu anywhere near a majority in Hokkaido, though? Or even in northern Hokkaido?

Invading Turkey after Iraq in the 2000s was not realistic since Turkey is a US ally. But with more luck after WWI, you could have an independent Kurdistan be created and permaenntly survive.

Morocco still controls the lion's share of Western Sahara, which in any case used to be a separate colony under Spanish rule.

Yep.

 

[PsihoKekec]

Are the Ainu anywhere near a majority in Hokkaido, though? Or even in northern Hokkaido?

Ainu are a tiny minority in Hokkaido, centuries of erasure of their culture did it's work.

 

[WolfBear]

Belgium is always a contender for this.

Belgium is the partitioned country of the future--and always will be!

Nigeria has been a contender for decades as is Kongo (the bigger one), not to mention Ethiopia. Either would be very bloody.

Nigeria is certainly very possible, as is of course Ethiopia due to its current civil war:

Nigeria Is a Failed State

The first step to restoring stability and security is recognizing that the government has lost control.

foreignpolicy.com

Failed state? Why Nigeria’s fragile democracy is facing an uncertain future

In the first in a series on Africa’s most populous state, we look at the effects of widening violence, poverty, crime and corruption as elections approach

www.theguardian.com

What's not helping Nigeria is that AFAIK its Muslim north is growing much faster than its Christian south is. This is likely the result of its Muslim north introducing Sharia law on the local level in the 1990s and beyond. Before that, birth rates in the Nigerian north and south were equal, but then a giant gap emerged between the two of them.

I don't know enough about the Democratic Republic of the Congo, unfortunately. Who there actually wants to secede?

We can really include almost all of Africa.

South Africa is rapidly heading for complete self-destruction as we speak, so that's presumably going to be a major example in the relatively near future...

The only realistic partition of South Africa would be between black people and colored people, unless of course the different black ethnic groups in South Africa will want to have their own separate countries:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d1/South_Africa_racial_map%2C_1979.gif

BTW, I've got an AHC for you: Have national self-determination still be as widespread as realistically possible, but with as little (or as less) suffering involved as realistically possible. Our TL was a huge national self-determination-wank but it also involved a lot of various evils such as WWI, WWII, Nazism, Communism, the Holocaust, et cetera. I want as much national self-determination as realistically possible but without these evils.

 

[gral]

I don't know enough about the Democratic Republic of the Congo, unfortunately. Who there actually wants to secede?

Historically, the South(Katanga tried to secede in the early 1960s). I think there's some secessionist sentiment in the East as well.

 

[WolfBear]

Historically, the South(Katanga tried to secede in the early 1960s). I think there's some secessionist sentiment in the East as well.

Kivu, backed by Rwanda, right?

 

[gral]

Kivu, backed by Rwanda, right?

I think so.

 

[WolfBear]

I think so.

Amazing that small Rwanda can bully a giant country such as DR Congo.

 

[gral]

Rwanda punches way above its weight because they have what is arguably the best army in the region.

 

[WolfBear]

Rwanda punches way above its weight because they have what is arguably the best army in the region.

And this is in spite of them having a massive genocide within the last 30 years!

 

[PsihoKekec]

Actually, that would be because of the genocide, it's why they take army competence seriously, unlike other countries in the region (except Burundi and Botswana) who see it as another source of graft.

 

[WolfBear]

Actually, that would be because of the genocide, it's why they take army competence seriously, unlike other countries in the region (except Burundi and Botswana) who see it as another source of graft.

Still, they'd have had more competent troops if it wasn't for their genocide, no?