Um. Chechnya was conquered by Russia in mid-19th century.
Mr Qwertyasd:
Sure, but it’s also a recognition by the conquering power that the world at large regards the previous borders as sacrosanct and won’t stand for an outright annexation.
The vast majority of the IRA’s funding came from Irish-Americans in the form of private donations. Congressman Peter King, who was then a local politician in New York, helped to funnel American money (and allegedly, weapons and explosives) to the Provisional IRA through charities such as NORAID. Other US elected and appointed officials prevented or hindered investigations into NORAID and other Sinn Fein/IRA fundraising in the US.
So, does that mean the US government supported the IRA? Does that mean the IRA was a “state”?
Yeah, then too. And 1921. If you think Russia didn’t conquer Chechnya in modern times you’d probably say Russia was just restoring constitutional authority over a breakaway republic that had no legitimacy. A lot of people disagreed, but they mostly ended up getting blown up. That’s why I added the POV caveat.
North Vietnam never conquered South Vietnam. South Vietnam was conquered by Western imperialists. Vietnam destroyed the puppet government and brought the benighted people back into the fold.
China didn’t conquer Tibet. Tibet was always part of China. Even when it wasn’t. And they prefer Chinese rule, anyway, so stop worrying about them.
ISIS isn’t conquering anyone, either. They’re restoring the glorious Caliphate. Iraq and Syria are fictions made up by Western pig dogs.
No external legitimacy, not a state. Easy question/answer.
Agreed. They are easily Warlords though, which is more than most guerrilla movements can say. But given the constant shifts and irregular lines of their area of control, I would not say that DAESH runs a province, though they do oversee a few governmental services.
Not to be confused with Shiite, given that most are Sunni.
So if the U.S. military annexes Canada, taking over the whole place in a few months and then setting up a new civilian government there (I guess the provinces would becomes states 51-60 or so), and 10 years have passed, the Canadians have all either said “eh” and moved on or died fighting…then it wouldn’t be a state if no one else acknowledges it?
Ditto if aliens with omnipotent powers show up and take over all of Europe. “not a state because we don’t acknowledge it even though there is zero chance of getting it back”. Sigh.
One big difference in that hypothetical is that the US and Canada are existing recognized countries with trading partners around the world.
So the only way in this hypothetical for the former Canada to not be (part of) a state is if all the world decided they didn’t want to trade with either territory, and insist on both leaving all international bodies, and declare that neither are recognized countries. This seems very unlikely. But if it happened, then…sure, it’s not a state.
Correct. Whether you have any likelihood of getting it back in the near future is irrelevant. Steal something from me and I’ll never say it is rightly yours, no matter whether I think I can get it back or not.
Now, the world is much older than any individual human and, playing devil’s advocate, there may be a time where ISIS territory is recognized as a state. But it will be at a time when the international conflict has receded, and individual countries have gradually accepted it as a state through trading, allowing them to join international agreements etc. Not because of some “Wow, ISIS are really kicking ass, you’ve got to hand it to them” video game style bonus.
It’d be “disputed territory”, a lot of times there will be ongoing wars during occupations like this. No one considers the Israeli state to extend to the occupied territories, for example. Virtually no one recognized the occupied territory of Nazi Germany, and continued to fight wars over it continuously until Nazi Germany ceased to exist.
As for your 10 years thing, the reality of such a situation is eventually U.S. ownership of Canada would get external legitimacy. But it would take on the order of more than one hundred years, not ten years. When enough time passes people just quit caring and eventually will accept the fait accompli. But the 12-24 months or so ISIS has held most of its territory certainly isn’t enough time, nor would 10 years be.
The time required to pass is also relative to the importance/size of what we’re talking about. In the grand scheme of things Crimea isn’t very big or very important, so maybe in 30-40 years most countries will formally accept that Crimea is part of Russia. But it’d probably be 100+ years before the international community accepted Canada as part of the United States.
It seems to me that this whole thing is an Iraqi civil war that has spilled over into Syria, a civil war which was the inevitable result of the US invasion and the consequent loss of power by the Sunni Muslims. Not content with having stirred up this hornets’ nest the US made things infinitely worse by disbanding the Iraqi army and leaving thousands upon thousands of embittered soldiers, many of them still armed, broke and angry. Now the ex-military chiefs and men make up the backbone of the Islamic State.
And, yes, it’s a state, it’s the old state of Saddam’s Iraq, a ghost come back from the grave to haunt us.
I swear to God, if Koko the Clown had been guiding US policy over the last decade he’d have done a better job than Bush or Obama. He certainly couldn’t do a worse.
How is this Obama’s fault, exactly?
Eh, he doesn’t say it’s Obama’s fault. I think it’s pretty uncontroversial that taking out Saddam’s government left a power vacuum. The Shiites in Iraq are only really interested in their own concerns, they aren’t willing to fight and die to defend “Sunni” land, the Sunnis aren’t interested in joining the Iraqi Army because they feel no loyalty to a State that is only really interested in governing them when it’s easy and doesn’t give a shit about them when they’re dying. I also think it’s fairly uncontroversial Obama is a pretty piss poor President when it comes to foreign relations and hasn’t done anything particularly good in his dealings in the Middle East. Nothing as bad as toppling Saddam and leaving a power vacuum behind, but you don’t get an A just because the last guy gets an F.
But he’s wrong that because ISIS leadership has a lot of former officers from Saddam’s Army leading it that it makes ISIS a “remnant state” of Saddam’s Iraq. That’s not how that works.
I don’t think anyone taking this position has answered the question about how much external recognition is required. Where exactly is that easy line?
Not everything in life is easy lines and black/white. It’s granular. Most people agree that if say, only Russia recognizes you as a State you lack external legitimacy. Most would also say if only Russia and a few close Russian allies recognize you as a state, you probably aren’t. (This is essentially where we are with breakaway provinces in Moldova in Georgia at the moment.)
Most people would agree that if all the countries of the world recognize you, you are a state. Most people would agree that if all the countries of the world aside from a small handful you have bad relations with recognize you as a state, you have external legitimacy.
In between it’s largely a judgment call. But ISIS to my knowledge isn’t recognized as a State by any other power. It also, to be frank, lacks internal legitimacy in a lot of its territory. People talk about government services, it does run some of those, in some areas. In other areas it “controls” it just runs toll booths and doesn’t govern anything. Also its territory shrinks and expands on like a daily basis. It is pretty clearly not a state.
I’ll also point out that nobody arguing that ISIL is a state has provided a cite to anything but the dictionary. No expert calling them a state, no theory of international relations that qualifies them as a state, nothing.
There is no easy line for where you become a state. A total lack of foreign recognition makes it clear that you aren’t one, though.
I’d say this is pretty controversial, especially in light of experts’ opinions on the Iran deal.
Scroll up. I provided several links from serious sources calling them state-like, or becoming more so.
State-like is about as much a state as Cheez Whiz is a cheese.