Ukraine’s partition could unleash a savage guerrilla war
Nina L. Khrushcheva is a professor of international affairs at The New School and the co-author of In Putin’s Footsteps: Searching for the Soul of an Empire Across Russia’s Eleven Time Zones.
Donald Trump has long asserted that he would end the Ukraine war within 24 hours of taking office. There has been much speculation about the settlement Mr. Trump has in mind, and the scenarios all have one thing in common: Ukraine’s dismemberment. If this has to be the cost of peace, it is worth considering the grim history of territorial partition.
Few events create such long-lasting enmity; fewer still have caused more devastating violence. The three partitions of Poland that took place in the late eighteenth century are perhaps Europe’s closest parallel to Mr. Trump’s vision for Ukraine. Beginning in 1772, Austria’s Habsburg monarchy, the Kingdom of Prussia, and the Russian Empire seized and annexed territory, effectively dividing Polish lands among themselves and erasing what had been Europe’s largest state by landmass.
In the face of such subjugation, violent resistance is all but inevitable. Poles conducted periodic guerrilla-style campaigns throughout the occupation, with major uprisings in 1831 and 1863. Resistance continued well into the 20th century, led by Josef Piłsudski’s campaigns for independence – laced with acts of terror – before the First World War. Enmity toward Russia, in particular, endures to this day, with the Kremlin having Stalin-era violence toward the Polish people to answer for.
As for France, it harboured hatred toward Germany for decades over Kaiser Wilhelm I’s absorption of Alsace and Lorraine into the new German Empire following the Franco-Prussian War of 1879-71. Reconciliation between the two countries began only in the 1950s, with the emergence of the European Coal and Steel Community (the precursor to today’s European Union) and NATO.
Similarly, Britain’s decision to partition Ireland, keeping the northern province of Ulster as part of the United Kingdom, incited a civil war between those willing to cede Northern Ireland, led by Michael Collins, and those who rejected any treaty that did not grant Ireland complete independence. That savage war of peace lasted just two years but left a legacy of terror – both Catholic and Protestant – that ended only with the Good Friday Agreement, brokered by the United States in 1998.
In terms of lives lost directly to a partition, however, nothing can compare to the 1947 division of the Indian subcontinent, following the departure of the British, into Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan. The partition triggered one of the largest migrations in history – involving some 18 million people – with Muslims heading to Pakistan (including modern-day Bangladesh) and Hindus and Sikhs trekking to India. Sectarian violence – including rapes, burnings and mass killings – led to the deaths of as many as 3.4 million people.
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