A bit of additional background: Panama and Colombia gained their independence from Spain separately in 1821 (although Panama had been ruled from Colombia as part of the Viceroyalty of New Granada). Panama voluntarily decided to join in union with Colombia after that. It thought better of this several times during the 1800s and rebelled, but Colombia was always able to retake the province, unlike the cases of the larger and stronger Venezuela and Ecuador. It wasn’t so much that partition was imposed by the US, but that the US taking an interest in the Canal route finally allowed Panama to achieve its long-sought independence from Colombia. The main reason it was relatively peaceful was that Colombia was no match for the US, and knew it; and there were hundreds of miles of roadless sparsely inhabited jungle between the populated parts of Colombia and Panama.
No, not that partition of Palestine, the earlier one - 1921, when the British split off the eastern half of the Mandate and gave it to the Hashemites, forming the Kingdom of Transjordan (later just Jordan). It was a protectorate until 1946, and it’s been mostly stable and prosperous throughout its existance.
Sure, it has fought its neighbour, but when have two neighbouring countries evernot fought a war?
This thread reminds of the episode of Yes, Prime Minister [1980s British political satire sitcom] where Sir Humphrey Appleby (IIRC), a top civil servant, claims that it has always been British Foreign Office policy to partition a country when leaving it, so that the locals fought each other instead of Britain (e.g. Ireland, Cyprus, India). He claimed that the policy was therefore hugely successful. Never mind the thousands of innocent lives lost, of course.
The way the Costa Ricans tell it, they are still Confederación Centroamericana. It was originally intended as a copy of the US but rapidly lost any intent to be a nation and became a supranational entity, more decoration than anything else. Car plates in the region say Centroamerica and the country’s name.
