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.Albright once told me, when I 172 At War with Ourselvesasked her how it felt for Washington to be fighting its own ideals, I drather be fighting those than a centralized economy [and] dictatorship. ¹vBut, unlike the Cold War, the battle against our own ideas is one we cannever completely win.It will go on as long as America extends its hege-mony, a key feature of the Permanent QuagmireÞöthe endlessly spiralingcrises we face.Some have argued that, after a burst of secessionÞöGeorgia, Ukraine,Kazakhstan, the Baltic states, and Yugoslavia, among othersÞöthe worldhas seen the worst of ethnic devolution.Apart from Kosovo, Taiwan,Chechnya, and a few other hot or potentially hot conflicts, many otherseparatist movements remain at a low simmer (like the Basques and Cata-lans in Spain, and the Quebecois in Canada) or are even petering out, asin the case (possibly) of the Kurds and Cypriots of Turkey.According tothe Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the number ofmajor armed conflicts around the worldÞöalmost all of which are internalto states, involving separatist movementsÞöhas remained steady at anaverage of about thirty a year since 1990.The phenomenon of globaliza-tion, meanwhile, may help to take the edge off the desire for sovereigntyas it becomes apparent that, for small countries especially, traditionalstate structures are less central to economic success than they used to be.But in a world in which so many developing countries exist alongcolonial borders that often cut across ethnic lines, the flames never quitego out.A post-Saddam Iraq, for example, could potentially disintegrateinto its three constituent parts (a Kurdish north, a Sunni middle, and aShiite south), and that could reignite Kurdish claims.Europe may not befinished either: Timothy Garton Ash writes that any European state witha less than 80 percent ethnic majority is inherently unstable. ¹w Likesome unstoppable process of fission, self-determination continues togenerate yet more sovereign states, Niall Ferguson writes. From Scot-land to Montenegro, would-be nation-states are waiting in the wings. ¹xAnd while the advent of democracy arguably prevents wars betweennation-statesÞöto recall Wilson againÞödemocratization also seems to fos-ter self-determination movements within nation-states. In Rwanda themassacre of around 800,000 Tutsis by Hutu [gangs] in April-July 1994 When Ideas Bite Back 173took place after international efforts to democratize the regime.InIndonesia, the most bitter fighting in East Timor came after the collapseof President Suharto s dictatorship in May 1998 and the island s demo-cratic vote for independence in August the following year, Fergusonnotes.¹y Afghanistan itself is a separatist volcano that is ready to erupt ifthe country ever gets back on its feet democratically.The British-drawnDurand Line, which in the late nineteenth century demarcated theboundaries of Queen Victoria s empire, cut off huge sections of the tribalPashtun regionsÞöknown as PashtunistanÞö for Imperial India, and theybecame part of Pakistan when it broke off in 1947.Pashtun Afghans, whomake up the majority ethnic group in Afghanistan, have long yearned toreincorporate Pashtunistan and Baluchistan.That could lead to civil war,and war with Pakistan.And so what the scholar Stanley Hoffman hascalled the crumbling of the Westphalian floor Þö referring to the 1648Peace of Westphalia, which founded the modern state systemÞöpromisesto continue.²p And so will Washington s need to compromise its ideals.The Many Guises of Ideological BlowbackAs the twenty-first century begins, ideological blowback has cropped upin many different places and takes many different forms.Consider theproblem of markets
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