| Pros |
Cons |
|
It is possible to achieve peaceful ethnic partitions, as Czechoslovakia
shows.
|
Separating relatively homogenous units such as the Czech republic and
Slovakia should be defined as secession rather than partition. Partitions
arise in demographically mixed areas and are almost always achieved only
through war.
|
| As ethnic partitions are the war aim of ethnic
conflicts, intervening to partition is better than letting the conflict
to drag on till it reaches partition. At least that way you save lives. |
In general, partitions arise in the context
of a transfer of power, and cannot be achieved without ethnic cleansing.
No democratic country can intervene to ethnically cleanse another country. |
| Even if the partitioned lands do not fall
into easily separable ethnic units, the peaceful transfer of populations
can be arranged and will save lives. |
People leave their homes only when forced
to do so, either at the barrel of a gun or through poverty. |
| Partitions may not solve the root cause of
the conflict, but they can at least serve as a means of containment |
Partitioned lands tend to remain in a long-term
situation of flux in which collective and individual security remain sensitive
even to minor irritants and thus conflict erupts frequently. |
| In the long term, ethnic partitions lead
to stability by creating ethnically pure states out of unhappily multiethnic
ones. |
Even in the longer term post-conflict phase,
trade, infrastructure, and demographic or familial interests are unable
to undermine or bypass the hostilities of partition without outside stimuli. |
| Partitions can at least provide an exit policy
for the international community. It did so for the British empire. |
For Britain’s colonial subjects, partitions
were the price of independence. In the post Cold War period, partition conflicts
are a point of entry for the international community, and the attempt to
stabilize them, as in Bosnia, only embroils the international community
in an ever-extending period of engagement. |
