[crusty]

One aspect of this that lends itself to the type of "easy" reconciliation that makes us think avoiding war shouldn't be so hard, is that neither party here actually had a sustained interest in the other. Serbia didn't have years, let alone decades or centuries, of grievance against the USA, and vis versa. The same with the US and Vietnam, or Japan, or Germany, or just about every other war the US has gotten involved in. As far as Americans are concerned, not long before whichever war, most Americans didn't even know where they "enemy" country was, or if it was a real place at all.

There are conflicts for which a resolution would require one or both sides to compromise on a position they hold, sometimes that they've held for a significant time. Those conflicts are much more thorny and the stories of reconciliation are usually much more personal even though it's clear that the underlying cultural conflict remains. Probably the most obvious is the Palestinian-Israeli conflict but for America, those unresolved internal conflicts that are unlikely to rise to war but just as fraught linger, regardless of the innumerable personal bonds between parties.

[necovek]

I think the ultimate solution needs to come down from UN in setting a legal framework for parts of the country to secede.

I.e. it's generally an economic interest for separatists rise to power, and I wonder if we could stymie that by making it legal for parts of countries to secede under a certain set of terms (paying "damages" to the parent country, obligating parent country to allow free travel and similar for a preset duration of 10 or 20 years).

In the end, I don't think we'd end up with a gazillion small countries, because there is value in having a larger market and freely moving people, even if it might start off with a spike in new countries being established.

[tim333]

If you make it easy and legal you'd get stuff like Wall Street seceding from the US to pay less tax.

A possible model for Israel like situations is both parts become part of some larger body like Eire and NI both joining the EU. I know that's changed now but it did quite a good job of stopping the troubles.

Maybe something like the earlier EU were you get free trade and human rights courts but without the latter attempts at a single currency and political integration.

[willyt]

But they would have to pay their share towards the upkeep of NYC at least or there would be border checks on the subway bringing Wall Street to its knees as they run out of secretaries and cleaners who commute from distant suburbs. Many companies would be forced for practical reasons to relocate to Brooklyn or New Jersey. Basically like U.K. leaving the EU.

[tekknik]

Stonk trading can happen on the internet. Is there even a floor anymore?

[necovek]

As I mentioned, that one is easiest to expect, and a seceding country would be paying a fee for 10 or 20 years that would pretty much cancel any tax savings.

After they are done, the formerly parent country could introduce visas for travel across the border, and as someone mentioned, all the income for people living outside the Wall Street would still be taxed by residency, as is the case today.

Of course, the rules would need to be carefully worked out, and it would disincentivise some but not others to secede (just like today). The goal should only be to avoid armed conflict in reaching the same state.

Basically, we all accept that killing someone is illegal if you disagree with them, but there's this sudden jump when countries declare war on each other and now it's ok to do exactly that.

Basically, it's double standards, and it should be a criminal act to declare war on anyone.

[tekknik]

I get what you’re trying to do, but do you realize how much you’re trying to force your idea of taxation onto others?

[enkid]

The UN purposefully doesn't involve itself in internal politics of its member states unless there is an clear reason to. Setting such a framework would be down right disastrous for some countries and would likely be ignored by many other countries that would be the countries that would need such a framework the most. It would also be unenforceable.

[necovek]

Anything the UN says is unenforceable if it does not come from the member states themselves.

My point was not to make UN the policeman, but to get countries to agree to change the founding principles of UN (which is exactly the sovereignity you mention). The cost involved should be big enough to discourage everyone and their uncle to claim a new state, obligations of signing all the UN resolutions and declarations should be present. Basically, I think it would discourage many smart people from wanting to separate in the first place: eg. if Catalonia decided to secede, they'd have to be willing to accept Barcelona to secede as well, and suddenly that is not as tempting economically.

FWIW, I am a Serbian myself, and the Serbian people have been at both ends of the bargain: they've stopped from seceding from Croatian and Bosnian territories for UN border reasons, but Kosovars are also not fully separated from Serbia because of UN ruled (though de facto both Bosnian Serbs and Kosovars have separate "states"). I am convinced that if such framework existed prior to 90s, we'd see much fewer wars (if any), since nationalists wouldn't have a way to rise to power. I don't even think we'd see much splitting up of Yugoslavia even, or at least not in any meaningful sense (maybe all states would have joined EU as independent states at the same time to make it EUgoslavia :).

I haven't worked this out in detail, and I am sure there's a bit of psychology to deal with too (people do need a bit of us vs them, which we are trying to substitute with sports), but I am sure that if we had a bunch of smart people on finding a way to make seccesion fair, we'd at least get a reduction of violent conflicts.

[tekknik]

> My point was not to make UN the policeman, but to get countries to agree to change the founding principles of UN

No your point is to force your ideals onto others. Hence the overuse of the word “discourage”

[necovek]

Yes, my ideal being to stop or at least reduce wars between nation states.

I know it's a hard one to buy into, but if you did, what would you suggest?

[tekknik]

Mandate gun ownership. Military weapons. So those in crap states / areas that need to sucede can just fix the problem with their gov. This doesn’t increase or force taxation or allow some external entity legal authority in your country.

[tekknik]

But why the UN? Doesn’t this just create a one world gov?

[necovek]

United Nation rules that countries' borders are indisputable have led to more than one war. Heck, Kosovo today is still officially part of Serbia even though de facto it is not. And I worry if we'll get to see more wars out of it (Serbia is looking to reintroduce obligatory military service for all men).

UN was created to stop wars like the WW1 and WW2 happening again, but while one could argue it was successful in that (I believe other factors have come into play, mostly increased standard of living), it has anything but stopped separatist conflicts.

To me the UN sounds like the right place to extend the goal to stop wars even further: it's where countries come together and agree on shared values, goals and rules.

I don't care if it's UN or anything else, if we are worrying about corruption, we'd need to design for that too because it is inevitable in any organization.

[tekknik]

You’re not going to stop wars, hard stop. An admirable goal but it will never happen. Rational minds are not the only ones on this planet. NK, China, these all still exist today despite the UN. The UN can cease to exist and nothing will change from our perspective.

Let’s take two examples. What’s goin on in Myanmar atm, they are supposed to sucede? From who? Who will tax them? Another example, let’s say hypothetically Texas decides the US is too liberal and sucedes. The liberal US will tax it at the liberal, starting a war. The US was even founded because of extreme taxation, which led to a war. Taxes = war. Give people away to defend themselves, then you’ll stop wars.

[INTPenis]

Nail on head. I have a cousin in Croatia who is very progressive and an artist. He's by far my favorite family member. But he lived in Osijek during yugoslavia and during the war and his animosity for serbs runs surprisingly deep.

While he doesn't dwell on it or let it consume him, if you ask then he will reveal that he still resents them for bullying and war crimes over 25 years later.

And in my view that was a relatively mild conflict compared to others like Israel and Palestine for example.

[1024core]

My Croatian friends still complain that Serb girls don't give them the time of day. I guess things aren't fully resolved yet.

[jariel]

"And in my view that was a relatively mild conflict compared to others like Israel and Palestine for example."

Serbs and Croats were massacring each other, mass rape, torture, executions, quasi-genocide. It's far worse than anything in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict at least on that level.

[INTPenis]

You sound like you're from there. Because you're clearly over exaggerating.

It's been pretty quiet down there for at least 20 years. You can literally walk over the border near Vukovar in some places without even seeing a border guard.

In Palestine people have a giant wall and are forced to go through humiliating border checks just to get to work. And it's been going on for longer than I've been alive.

[jariel]

It was bad [1].

In WW2 there was straight up genocidal stuff, in 1990's there was ethnic cleansing. Torture houses, militias going door to door kicking people out, executing them. Some barbaric stuff rooted in a very long history.

It's almost 'neighbour v. neighbour' - not a quite war of 'highly organized national soldiers' vs. 'some other nation'.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yugoslav_Wars

[fsloth]

Excellent point. Also, the protagonists in this story were not taught to hate each others national identities at birth. There is a point where people become so indoctrinated with hate that before start making pastry, the hate would need to be de-programmed.