Irredentism and Vladimir Putin

Vladimir Putin: First, when we speak of irredentism , we refer to efforts to unify a lost territory inhabited by ethnic kin. What Russia is doing today is irredentism. Irredentism is almost always very controversial and almost always very costly because it usually requires war. Countries do not give up pieces of themselves all that willingly and when they do, it is to create new countries, not give hunks of territory to their neighbours, according to Globe and Mail. The importance of this is that we have to be concerned about Russia and the bullying of its neighbours, but we might not have to be so concerned about Eastern Ukraine being gobbled up next. Why? Because it does not combine the strategic interests, the relatively recent border changes, and previous separatism that define Russian interests in Crimea. Irredentism tends to happen when there is log-rolling among different interest groups, such as the military/defence contractors, those with ethnic kin in Crimea, nationalists who care about past grievances, those hurt by greater international economic engagement and so on. Other hunks of the Near Abroad are not so attractive for nationalists back in Moscow because they would involve incorporating more people, which means more voters and more social welfare expended elsewhere and Tuesday morning, Vladimir Putin completed the second step of the Irredentism Two-Step : annexing Crimea after recognizing its independence yesterday. The question moves from how credulous does Putin think the world is, after a blatantly sham referendum, to what next? And there are two dynamics to consider: Russias irredentism and NATOs future. Second, irredentism is often quite selective. Hitlers efforts to reunify the German speaking peoples of Europe, for example, suggested that irredentism is unrelenting. The reality is more complex. Somalia, for instance, was seen as incorrigibly irredentist for claiming the Somali-inhabited areas of Ethiopia, Djibouti, and Kenya in the 1960s. But that was because the design of its early democracy led politicians to reach out to multiple groups, each having ties to some of the kin nearby. In the 1970s, with a narrower set of supporters, the authoritarian regime focused solely on the Somalis of the Ogaden region in Ethiopia. That lost war ultimately broke Somalia irredentism can be inconsistent but is always costly. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.