National Self-Determination vs. Sovereignty
National Self-Determination and Sovereignty are two principles that arose out of the concepts of state, nation and nationalism (click here for definitions) that originated in European revolutions of political modernization beginning in the 17th century and which spread to the non-European world in the twentieth century. World War I was in substantial measure a consequence of a clash between these two principles and World War II was substantially the consequence of a failure to resolve these tensions. The late-20th century conflict in the Balkans and the continuing problems in the Middle East are a delayed response to this failure. Useful in understanding the tension between the two principles is the following discussion quoted from:
Quoted from:
Michael Lind, "Redefining Sovereignty," Los Angeles Times (May 16, 1999), M 1,6. :
The puzzle of what to do in a situation like this (a conflict between sovereignty and self-determination) first confronted U.S. policymakers after World War I. President Woodrow Wilson and leaders of the victorious Allied powers had to decide what political units would replace the Austrian Hapsburg and Ottoman Turkish empires, which had collapsed. Both had ruled sections of the Balkans; both had been multinational. While championing national self-determination, Wilson did not originate the idea, which dated back to the late 18th century, and had led to the unifications of Germany and Italy in the 1800s. Nor was Wilson responsible for turning World War I into a crusade to break up the Hapsburg and Ottoman empires. In fact, in January 1917, when the U.S. was still neutral, Britain, France and the other Allies demanded "the liberation of the Italians, as also of the Slavs, Romans and Czecho-Slovaks from foreign domination." What is more, Wilson was willing to accept guarantees of autonomy short of sovereignty for ethnic minorities within larger units. In his 14 Points, Wilson declared only that "the peoples of Austria-Hungary should be accorded the freest opportunity of autonomous development." By contrast, Wilson favored "an independent Polish state." Wilson recognized that in the Balkans, the mingling of different ethnic groups made it difficult to draw clean lines for new nation-states. Despite this, the result of World War I in the Balkans, Central Europe and the Middle East was the partition of empires into successor states, some of which, like Yugoslavia, contained several nationalities. The plight of ethnic Germans outside Germany, and ambitions of groups like the Hungarians and Croats, gave Adolf Hitler an excuse to intervene abroad, increasing not only the influence but the borders of the Third Reich. Following World War II, the minority problem in Central Europe was settled in a most brutal fashion: by the mass transfer of populations. For 50 years, the communist regimes of the Soviet Union and Tito's Yugoslavia, both multinational countries, managed to suppress ethnic conflicts, but, with the end of the Cold War, both split up along regional and ethnic lines. In response, the U.S. departed from the policy it had supported in Europe since Wilson. President George H.W. Bush, and many other Western leaders, initially opposed the breakup of the Soviet Union. Then, a few years later, many U.S. and European leaders opposed the secession of Croatia, Slovenia and other former territories of Serb-dominated Yugoslavia. If Wilson's policy favored self-determination at the expense of sovereignty, post-Cold War U.S. administrations have argued that ethnic minorities should have autonomy within the framework of larger, multiethnic sovereign states. In frowning on partition and secession, U.S. policymakers were sensitive to the fears of countries like Turkey, Russia and China, which worried that their own ethnic minority regions might seek independence....
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