Where in the world, over the next 20 years, can we expect new, independant nations to spring up? (e.g. Aceh, Irian Jaya). Are any big countries likely to fall apart and a whole buncha little new nations spring from their remains?
mm
I wouldn’t be surprised if northern Iraq ended up being an independent Kurdistan. If ever they had a real opportunity it’ll be the near future while things are in flux.
There’s plenty of possibilities in central Asia, especially countries bordering Afghanistan. Ukraine recently showed that it’s possible for a supposedly-established country to very quickly become very divided - what happens there in the next two decades is hard to predict.
Transdniestria in northern Moldova might become internationally recognised. It already considers itself independent.
A topic for IMHO, IMHO 
In Africa, what about Nigeria? Sudan?
And of course Congo…
The possibilities are endless given the right (or probably the wrong) circumstances. Indeed, it’s more of an IMO question…
And what about an independant Kashmeer?
Err…well, let’s forget about it…
One more possibility : Sri-Lanka spliting up…
Georgia and the Southern Caucuses are very politically unstable.
Sri Lanka I think is highly likely.
An independent Kurdistan would be fiercely opposed by Turkey.
A viable Palestine, once Likud and the West Bank settlers are gone.
Bougainville from PNG.
Noumea and various other French Pacific colonies.
Québec?
After East Timor gained independence perhaps the Indonesian share of PNG could so.
Possible, but less likely now that Ukraine has west-leaning government. In any case an independent Trandnistria would be a safe haven for certain types of criminals and heavily dependent of Russian aid much like today, which means that internatiol recognition would be hard to get. It would be seen as a Russian (and maybe also Ukrainian) puppet state.
In America, Bolivia looks rather fragile right now because its weak economy and internal discrepancies. It’s possible that the country might split in two someday soon.
There’s been an ongoing movement in Scotland to secede from the United Kingdom.
Indeed. We have our own parliament in Edinburgh. The SNP are atanding next week on an ‘independence within Europe’ ticket. I am tempted to vote for them.
Would this negatively affect Scotland in any way?
I heard someone talking about the chance that the EU might break up, but I doubt it that would result in any new countries. :dubious:
There’s no way that full Scottish independence would happen in 20 years. Devolution has made it much less of a priority for many Scots, and the SNP is run as badly as Labour in the 1980s.
Could it negatively affect Scotland? Quite possible, it could cause real economic harm. It’s one of the poorest parts of the UK, with more government spending there than south of the border. The SNP are convinced that Scottish territorial claims to North Sea oil & gas would balance this out, but there’s two snags: it’s in the hands of private companies, so they’d have a nightmare of a legal battle with no certain outcome - and it’s going to run out before very long anyway.
If you’re going this way there’s also an ongoing movement for Belgium splitting up…
What a remarkably ill-informed post. Almost every statement is false. Remarkable.
Transylvania has an independence movement. They want to cecede from Romania.
And, presumably, give the Werewolves the vote.