[afarrell]

> This is hardly controversial

> Catalunya

> Kosovo

I'm a bit confused. Are you saying that it is non-controversial that Catalunya or Kosovo can secede and then using that to argue that it is non-controversial that Texas can secede?

[toyg]

In one of those cases, the US themselves deployed weaponry to protect the population's own right to self-determination, so at least to US audiences it should read as uncontroversial, surely.

Catalunya is still a bit fresh, but I think it is uncontroversial to say that quashing such demands has historically resulted in bad things happening that we probably wouldn't want to see happening again. In the age of the internet, you don't increase legitimacy by deploying batons.

I say this as a natural anti-independentist - I think the real challenge of our time is scaling government up, not down; and when one starts dividing and drawing lines, one is playing an extremely dangerous game that might well end up in Balkanization, ethnic cleansing included. But it is a fact that not all nation-states are as cohesive as France, and self-determination demands are legitimate when they reach certain numbers. The nation-state itself is a concept borne of very different times, which might be nearing its sell-by date. It shouldn't be scandalous to concede that a line on a map could be thicker in one place and thinner elsewhere, if that means a more peaceful existence and better cooperation at a higher level.

[afarrell]

I’m not necessarily disagreeing with you. I’m disagreeing with your belief in the non-controversial nature of your statement.

> The US deployed weaponry to...

Is an admission that an position is controversial enough that a major world power thought it prudent to enforce that opinion with violent force or the active threat of force. "Kosovo je Srbija" is still an opinion you’ll find expressed in earnest.

Would it be controversial for Texas to have the right to secede? Given internal (racial, economic) divisions within Texas, I’d say yes. Secession can also cause violence by removing a hegemon who enforces peace among different groups.

[toyg]

> an admission that an position is controversial enough that a major world power thought it prudent to enforce that opinion with violent force

But that is the point of Wilson's: the US will (or rather should) back the right to self-determination. That has been the case for a century, and completely doing away with it (or witholding it from its very own citizens) would be a regression.

> Secession can also cause violence

Absolutely, as we've seen in the Balkans. And that's why I'm not a fan of independentist movements, in general. I just don't think one can sustain Wilson in some scenarios and not in others, as a principle. One can calculate pros and cons and allow secession only if certain conditions are met, but we cannot dismiss it with prejudice.

[afarrell]

> the US will (or rather should) back the right to self-determination

Indeed. There are powerful institutional reasons why the US does so, including the desires of the American electorate and the structure of US commerce.

> I just don't think one can sustain Wilson in some scenarios and not in others, as a principle. One can calculate pros and cons and allow secession only if certain conditions are met, but we cannot dismiss it with prejudice.

Right, but primary among those conditions must be the power forms of power that could be brought to bear. This is more complex than "If the US 7th fleet were to sail to Hong Kong, it could be sunk by the area-denial power of the People's Liberation Army Navy." because power is more complex than that. But the fact that the PLA could invade Hong Kong is a significant weight on the scale. And so any exercise of power in order to back Hong Kongers right of self-determination is going to have to be more skillfully constructed than anything I could come up with. and it might not be possible. It depends partly on how subtle and skillful the diplomats serving under Trump administration can be.

And the results of that are not going to be consistent with the results of trying to support the self-determiniation of Estonians breaking away from a collapsing USSR. After all, the US didn't succeed at supporting the self-determination of Estonians prior to the 80s.