Unipolarity
I’ve been avoiding this topic for a long time because it is complicated, but I suppose I need to say something about it. The subject is the end of unipolarity, as reported in Glenn Diesen’s Substack post. Well, the end of unipolarity was really announced by Marco Rubio; Diesen was merely commenting on it. He …
The Chagos Islands Affair
Is there no end of sovereignty disputes in the world? At one time, I thought there were relatively few remaining ones, but I keep discovering new an interesting ones. This one concerns the British Indian Ocean Territory, also known as the Chagos Islands, a series of tiny atolls in the Indian Ocean (basically in the …
Trump Challenges Assumptions Again
This post concerns an article on the bizarrely named website “Slugger O’Toole,” about Trump’s willingness to recognize Russian control of the Crimea. This lengthy article is a fascinating mixture of insights and misconceptions. To start with the latter, it repeats, of course, the usual pablum about Westphalia and the origins of sovereignty. It also engages …
The Birth of Kabylia
On December 14th, a government in exile declared the independence of Kabylia, a Berber region in Algeria. Of course, the region has existed for time immemorial, but it has not had an independent political existence. And it still doesn’t. But this is the first step that might lead in that direction. Tensions between the Arab …
Somaliland Gets First Official Acceptance
I mentioned Somaliland in an earlier post. It stands out as one of the few de facto independent countries in the world that no one will recognize. Well, that has finally changed, as Israel has officially recognized it. My default inclination is to support the independence of any region that wants it and is capable …
International Prize of the Peace of Westphalia
Apparently this is a new prize, awarded for the first time in 2025. I don’t know what the criteria are, but the first recipient was a Holocaust survivor. It’s always tricky awarding peace prizes, and the Nobel committee has often resorted to giving its prize to people who do humanitarian work. I am surprised by …
Tonga
From Western Sahara we go to the other side of the world, to the Pacific, where a scholar is concerned about Tongan sovereignty and specifically the sovereignty of women. Since “sovereignty” is a concept that is applied to nations and not to individuals, I’m not sure what she means when she says that “we aren’t …
Western Sahara
I am fond of obscure conflicts, and few are more obscure than the one in Western Sahara. This territory was one of Spain’s few colonies in Africa, which Spain only ceded in 1975. They handed it over to joint Moroccan-Mauretanian rule, in spite of an ICJ decision that the territory should have self-determination. A resistance …
Victory or Peace?
One of the most puzzling aspects of the Ukraine War, for me, has been the most pacifist, anti-war people I know urging that there is no alternative to a Ukrainian victory. No negotiated peace: only a complete victory, with the full expulsion of the Russians — and preferably regime change in addition — is acceptable. …
Trump’s Peace Plan
It has taken a lot longer than I had hoped, but Trump finally presented a plan for peace between Russia and Ukraine. I am happy with it, as it aligns pretty closely with what I expected. I thought it would be worth going over some of the points in detail. The thing that Ukraine and …