Brzezinski Chair in Global Security and Geostrategy

Eritrea’s independence struggle entailed a 30-year war and the mobilization of a remarkable national liberation movement. Independent Eritrea started with great hopes, but a border war broke out with Ethiopia in 1998, resulting in the almost complete militarization of society.

Within just 15 years of independence, Timor-Leste managed to become the most democratic nation in Southeast Asia. Its success was possible due to the skill of its leaders, shifts in geopolitics, and unprecedented levels of international support.

The modern Kosovo state is a product of Albanian nonviolent and violent rebellion, Serbian repression, the dissolution of socialist Yugoslavia, state collapse in Albania, NATO intervention, U.S. and EU support, Russian weakness, and UN administration.

South Sudan achieved independence in 2011 after five decades of struggle and enjoyed substantial international support. However, within two and a half years, the dream of independence lay in ruins as fighting led to a bloody civil war.

The United Nations’ preferred solution to self-determination movements is complex power-sharing agreements from which no party prefers to defect unilaterally. What can we learn from the Western Balkans about what balance of power typically constitutes a successful agreement?

A broad-scale examination of the factors that lead to thriving societies after independence does not yield clear patterns. It underlines the uncertainty that pervades the enterprise of pursuing, winning, and implementing independence.

The United States government can neither engender new states nor prevent them from coming into being, but it does possess a range of policy tools to influence the trajectory of new or aspiring states.