The process of balkanization has resonance in current international conflicts and
in the War on Terrorism. Some observers have suggested that Pakistan, a strategic
partner of the United States and a key player in the campaign to control Islamic radi-
calism, is a prime candidate for balkanization because of the country’s numerous
ethnic groups and the large Pushtun population it shares with Afghanistan. Indeed,
historically one of the principal factors driving the process of balkanization has
been the geographic separation of an ethnic group by an international border. The
Pushtun community was divided by the Durand Line, an international border
imposed in the late 19th century that resulted in approximately two-thirds of the
Pushtuns residing in Pakistan, and one-third living across the boundary in southern
Afghanistan. Furthermore, the Afghan state is composed of multiple ethnic groups,
many of whom share close linguistic and historical ties with cousins lying
just across one of the country’s borders. This is the case with the Tajiks, Uzbeks,
Turkmen, and Baluchis, in addition to the Pushtun community. A successful effort
to unify the Pushtuns or any of the other minorities could result in the balkanization
not only of Pakistan, but of Afghanistan as well.
Yet another example is Georgia, a country that has experienced the process of
balkanization since independence in 1991. Although the country covers only about
27,000 square miles (slightly larger than West Virginia), it contains two breakaway
regions that have fought the government in Tbilisi since 1995. Abkhazia in the
northwest and South Ossetia in the north-central part of the country both border
on Russia, and both have received strong support from that nation. The Ossetians re-
present yet another example of an ethnic community splintered by an international
boundary. The Georgian government no longer exercises political control in either
region, and both now govern their respective territory as semi-independent states.
In addition, the southwestern corner of this tiny country, a region called Ajaria,
has also indicated signs of centrifugal tendency since the early 1990s, although
unlike in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, not via violent separatism. The de facto
balkanization of the Georgian state has greatly increased international tensions
between Georgia and Russia in recent years, leading to a short but destructive war
between them in 2008. Here as elsewhere, the process of balkanization involves
not simply the division of a country into smaller, ethnically based units, but spills
over into a larger regional context, creating the potential for much wider conflict.
On the other hand, balkanization has been suggested by some policymakers as a
reasonable response to overcoming internal animosities in some states. In the case
of Iraq, some American leaders suggested a policy that would promote at least
limited balkanization of the country. Senator Joseph Biden, who later became Vice
President of the United States, offered such a plan in 2006 that would divide Iraq
into three ethno-religious zones: a Kurdish sector in the north, a Sunni region in
the center, and a Shiite zone in the southern reaches of the country. The Kurds,26 Balkanization