What do you think about the world’s insurgencies?

[Homo Insapiens]

There are & have been a number of insurgencies around the world, past & present.
Usually by those claiming to be ethnically & culturally distinct from the ruling demographic, as well as those with different political ideologies, as well as by those wanting to join rather than separate territories.
I’m not sure if there’s any in western countries currently, most of them seem to be in Asia & Africa, perhaps often as a result of European powers ignoring local ethnicities & cultures when they were establishing borders.
Which are you most & least sympathetic towards?
Is it colonialism, something generally frowned upon in the modern world, at least in a historical context, to hold ethnicities & regions that claim to be distinct against their will?
Is that good or bad in your opinion?
The ones I’m currently aware of include:
West Papua, Southern Thailand, Mindanao, Sri Lanka, Kashmir, Chechnya, Tigray, what else can you think of?
I’d imagine there are some in Africa, but I’m not very familiar with them, I’m most familiar with those in Asia.

[sean]

What do you think about the world’s insurgencies? There are & have been a number of insurgencies around the world, past & present. Usually by those claiming to be ethnically & culturally distinct from the ruling demographic, as well as those with different political ideologies, as well as by those wanting to join rather than separate territories.

Well, nations that are faced with an insurgency within their own borders actually quite often triumph. Modern history is full of defeated or neutered insurgencies. The Malayan Emergency, Baloch insurgencies in Pakistan and Iran, Naxalite Maoists/Kashmir Separatists in India, Syrian rebels, Cambodian resistance against Vietnam, IRA, etc.

Pakistan largely suppressed the Baloch insurgency through containment waiting for their leaders to die, investment to develop the region meaning the people started going to the legislature to solve issues not insurgents, and amnesty programs to win over defectors. Similar situation in India.

A lot of failed counter-insurgencies on the other hand are conducted by nations acting beyond their borders, such as the Soviets in Afghanistan. Soviets failed in Afghanistan due to their brutal tactics failing to win popular support and only driving villages to the insurgents.

In the case of America, most Americans frankly didn't care about the Taliban taking over some town on the other side of the world. If the Taliban were in the US, things would be quite different.

I’m not sure if there’s any in western countries currently, most of them seem to be in Asia & Africa, perhaps often as a result of European powers ignoring local ethnicities & cultures when they were establishing borders. Is it colonialism, something generally frowned upon in the modern world, at least in a historical context, to hold ethnicities & regions that claim to be distinct against their will?

You are a clown. Colonies never start out as colonies. They start out as trading missions. Colonies start out with a good trade arrangement with the locals which goes sideways requiring the Government, or hired mercenaries, to bail out the trading guys who pissed off the locals.

Like a mafia boss, you let the locals run the show, as long as they remember to pay you off. Modern insurgencies got nothing do with colonialism, social science research has demonstrated that mere presence of ethnolinguistic heterogeneity does not actually increase a country's change of ethnic civil war, ceteris paribus; however, the uneven distribution of power across ethnic groups does.

For instance, we see little ethnic conflict between Azeris and Persians in Iran because both are very deeply enmeshed in the Iranian state. Across the border in Turkey, we see a lot of conflict between the Kurds and Turks as Kurds feel they are systematically excluded from the state system.

Is that good or bad in your opinion?

I don't care. Not our problem to get involved. What is our problem is making sure our countries stay out of it and we accept zero refugees from any war-torn non-white shithole.

What will actually happen is that brown and black shitholes are going to have more massive civil wars, and then all the people who are irreconcilably different will be dead and their countries are going to get chopped up and turned into the breadbasket it always could be, and nobody's going to say boo about it because to do otherwise flies in the face of every nationalist and decolonisation movement that ever reared its head.

Which are you most & least sympathetic towards?

None.

The ones I’m currently aware of include: West Papua, Southern Thailand, Mindanao, Sri Lanka, Kashmir, Chechnya, Tigray, what else can you think of?

Who cares.