The hand of Putin, erasing the border of Ukraine

We have become used to the idea that national boundaries are permanent – set in stone and even sacrosanct. The concept of fixed and inflexible national borders – with no possibility of secession – is known as “Territorial Integrity”.  

The idea of a country selling or leasing – or even, God forbid, give away parts of its territory – however tiny – to an another country, let alone a private organisation – seems (to most people today) unthinkable, if not immoral and treasonous. 

Whenever some part of a particular country wishes to secede – very often for sound reasons – nationalist politicians angrily denounce the idea as treasonous whilst pontificating about preserving their country’s “territorial integrity”, even when the said country has never been culturally cohesive.

T.I. is the principle that a state’s borders are sacrosanct; that nation-states should not permit any secessionist movements or border changes.    TI has become a very powerful and emotive weapon in the hands of bullying authoritarian and nationalistic governments to forcibly stifle any opposition to their way of thinking, or their right to rule.  The word “integrity” itself is emotive as it implies positive traits like “honesty, sincerity, virtue, goodness,” etc.   So what “integrity” has to do with preserving national boundaries at any cost is unclear.  The concept of T.I has been especially enforced by that disgraceful soap-box platform of (mostly) unelected tyrants, the United Useless Nations Organisation.   Created and paid for by those they hate.

There is barely a country which hasn’t changed its borders – often substantially so – in the last 100 years, so how can borders be sacrosanct?  

 

Prince Hans-Adam II of Liechtenstein, speaking to the International Institute for Strategic Studies on 25 January 2001, argued for a more flexible approach to territorial integrity, in line with historical norms, saying, “Let us accept the fact that states have lifecycles similar to those of human beings who created them”. Hardly any Member State of the United Nations has existed within its present borders for longer than five generations. The attempt to freeze human evolution has in the past been a futile responsibility and has probably brought about more violence, rather than if such a process had been controlled peacefully. Restrictions on self-determination threaten not only democracy itself but the state which seeks its legitimation in democracy.”

STRANGE BOUNDARIES

When we look at a map showing the world’s political divisions we generally expect every country to consist of a contiguous area right up to its borders with its neighbouring country.   And, unless an island state or a peninsula like Korea, we expect them to have land borders with at least 2 other states because those that are totally surrounded by another state (like Gambia) look rather odd.   And a landlocked country entirely surrounded by the territory of another (e.g. Lesotho within S. Africa or San Marino within Italy), looks even stranger.   Yet, until the mid-19th century, Europe contained dozens of such enclaves and exclaves.   And, until its own independence in 1947, British-ruled India contained many semi-independent “princely states” as well as several small French-ruled enclaves (incorporated in 1954) and 3 Portuguese territories (invaded and forcibly incorporated in Dec 1961).       

TERRITORIAL SALES

Map showing US territorial expansion in the 19th century

We also think it bizarre and unthinkable (if not immoral) the idea that one country could sell – or exchange – part of its territory to another.    Yet this practice was once very commonplace.   For example in 1803 the US purchased the vast Louisiana Territory (not to be confused with the smallish present-day state of Louisiana) from France for a pittance, and then in 1867 bought Alaska from Russia for a similar pittance.    And in the 1853 “Gadsden Purchase” the USA bought a slice of border territory from Mexico.  Finally, as recently as 1917, the USA bought their part of the Virgin Islands from a cash-strapped Denmark.   Although the USA – being the USA – has bought bigger and better chunks of territory than any other, it is not the only country to have indulged in this practice.  

In 1755 the Republic of Genoa lost control of Corsica in a nationalist uprising.  In 1769 France bought the island and defeated the rebels.  That same year Napoleon was born in the capital of Ajaccio.  

In 1806, the Swedish government offered sovereignty of the large Baltic Sea island of Gotland to the Order of St. John of Jerusalem, who had been expelled from Malta in 1798, but the Order rejected the offer since it would have meant renouncing their claim to Malta.

There are many other such examples

TERRITORIAL LEASES

It is also considered a strange and outdated idea (and again, arguably immoral) for a country to lease small portions of its territory, thereby ceding political power for the duration of the lease. The most famous example was Britain’s 99-year (1898-1997) lease from China of Hong Kong’s “New Territories” (approx 1000 sq km).   But around the same time China leased other enclaves to France, Germany, and Japan.   The USA’s 1903  “lease” of Guantanamo Bay from Cuba is an example of a lease granted in perpetuity.   From 1903-1979 the US occupied the Panama Canal Zone, although this was not technically a lease.  

 Aside from permanent sales of territory, there are cases when territorial concession has been granted voluntarily by a state, believing the arrangement to be in their mutual interest.

Since 1960, Britain has possessed 2 “sovereign base areas” in Cyprus. Arguably, the existence of the eastern British enclave may have prevented the Turks from occupying all the entire eastern corner of the island in the 1974 invasion.   

ENCLAVES & EXCLAVES

Until quite recently these were commonplace, especially in Europe.

The Principality of Orange (1163-1713) in Provence, France

The very name of the Dutch Royal family derived from the city of Orange in Provence.   This Dutch-ruled territory consisted of the city of Orange and surrounding land totalling 108 sq miles.   William III of Orange (who inherited the throne of England in 1688), but died childless in 1702, was the last Dutch ruler before it was ceded to France in the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), the same treaty which awarded Gibraltar and Menorca to England.

There were countless other similar isolated enclaves owned by geographically distant countries.

WAS UNIFICATION A GOOD THING FOR GERMANY & ITALY..?

In the mid-17th century the map of Germany and, to a lesser extent, Eastern France and Northern Italy, was a patchwork quilt of hundreds of separate fiefdoms.  Although there was some rationalisation over the next 2 centuries, many of these states lasted up until the 1860’s.

In 1860 most of Italy was united by Garibaldi.  This could not have been achieved without the help of France, which annexed Savoy for its payment.

In 1871 Bismarck “united” Germany – one suspects it was not a willing process – in order to create the powerful militaristic state that 70 years later led to the utter destruction of Germany and so many of its historic cities and the loss of much of its territory.     

Wouldn’t it have been so much better for the German people, and tourism, if these little parcels of Ruritania had been allowed to remain independent like Luxembourg and Liechtenstein have?   Think how many more Neuschwanstein castles we might have?

Sadly, so many beautiful medieval cities and towns were razed by ww2 bombing, much of it not because they were legitimate military targets but very often out of spite, e.g. the mediaeval city of Nuremberg because of its association with Hitler’s pre-war Nazi Party Rallies.  

Meanwhile in Italy, whilst the (then and now) lethargic backwater of Southern Italy, Sicily and Sardinia, had been “united” under a single government for centuries (go figure) certain Italian nationalists decided that Northern Italy’s patchwork of small and exotic states should copy this abject failure of a precedent. 

HELIGOLAND – in 1895 Britain exchanged this small island for Zanzibar – at the time the Germans thought it a bad deal for them but turns out it was a worse deal for Britain, which otherwise would still have this North Sea island like it still has the Channel Islands once part of Normandy.   In a fit of what can only be considered spite, the departing British occupation force in 1947 detonated the biggest non-nuclear explosion in history in an attempt to make the island uninhabitable.  

Known and loved by stamp-collectors and tax avoiders alike, only a few of these tiny states have survived – Liechtenstein, Monaco, San Marino, Andorra.

CYPRUS – 2 British Sovereign Bases (since 1960) of Akrotiri and Dhekelia (total 254 sq km)

DIEGO GARCIA – British Indian Ocean Territory base leased to USA in 1965

GUANTANAMO BAY – leased to the USA (by Cuba, after it gained independence from Spain in 1902), “in perpetuity” (the Castro govt refuses to accept the rent)

CAMPIONE – an “exclave” of Italian territory (on Lake Lugano) within Switzerland

A RETURN TO THE STATUS-QUO ANTE..? 

Oasis Cities herald the possibility that a future political map of the world may once again contain many tiny territories, both exclaves and enclaves

WHAT HAPPENED BEFORE CAN HAPPEN AGAIN