As the events in Bosnia,Kosovo, chechnya, northern Ireland, palestine, africa, etc.ad nauseum make clear, the shibolleth: “national boundaries are not to be redrawn via the use of force” is not working as a rule of thumb.
Query:is there any reasoned framework that one might bring to the nationalist aspirations of previously oppressed (I am by definition considering oppressed all succcessor states of former empires).
In other words, if you had to explain to the Kurds why they lose, but the East Timorese win, why the Krajina Serbs lose, but the Pale Serbs win, why its too late for the Chechens, but its righton time for Israel, etc. etc.
If you proposed to set forth some sort of standards by which to judge the legitimacy or lack thereof inherent in a particular national aspiration the end object ofwhich is to redraw some border with unmistakable impact on the status quo of a whole lot of folk, what would they be, other than it’s too inconvenient for some (like the kurds).?
Remember, virtually all of these people come to the table innocent of any democratically expressed renunciation of sovereignty (compare the ratification of our constitution, and the civil war as the legitimate resistance to redrawing a national border, namely ours…)
And if the Chechens never voted to be part of Russia, and now they say they don’t want to be part of russia (by the way, I think there is actually a secession mechanism built into the russian federation, but lotsa luck with that…) why is it ok for Russia to keep them?
Why is it ok for us to keep Hawaii?