Irredentism Among Friends? But Of Course

 Last night, just before I went to bed, I saw this:

This is the most bonkers statistic I have seen in a long time. 😳
35% of NATO countries' populations believe there are parts of neighbouring countries that actually belong to them.
35%! And this is not just driven by countries with actual territorial disputes. pic.twitter.com/c99ULDAIEi

— Ulrike Franke (@RikeFranke) December 13, 2020

Bonkers?  As a scholar of irredentism, my professional opinion is no, not bonkers.  Not at all.  Before we start, one iron law of polling is that at least 15-20% of the answers will be nuts.  Now, let's get into the irredentism of it all. 

Irredentism refers to either political movements or countries seeking to return a "lost" territory back to an existing state (unless it is Kurdish-style, which refers essentially to the amalgamation of multiple secessionist groups).  And therein lies the rub--what counts as "lost."  Saddam Hussein considered Kuwait a lost province of Iraq in his rhetoric, but he didn't get much play.  Why?  There was not anyone of Iraqi descent in Kuwait clamoring for reunion.  Crimea?  Absolutely irredentist, as Russians in Crimea wanted to be part of Russia (not all of them), and Russia could claim that Crimea belonged to Russia.  That does not make it legal in international law, but it makes it a specific form of conquest, unlike Kuwait.

The thing is: almost any hunk of territory has belonged to different states depending on the time one chooses AND places teach their histories in ways that remind people of when "we were greater than we are now."  So, of course, some people believe that some territory nearby belongs to them.  The problem develops when the group left behind or the mother country try to do something about it.  

So, taking a look at the survey, most of these results are entirely unsurprising:

• Hungary leads the league in something, finally.  Hungary was one of the cases Bill and I addressed in our book because it seemed to be more engaged in symbolic irredentism than any other non-violent case.  I referred to it as optimally obnoxious, as a series of leaders had a variety of policies that annoyed the neighbors over the actual and imagined plight of the Hungarians abroad.  Hungary lost something like 25% of its territory and a third of its population in the Treaty of Trianon ending its part of World War I.  In part,because because Hungarian is such a distinct language, those left abroad have more or less kept their identities.  That Romanians tend to target the Hungarian minority also "helps."  
• Too bad Romania is not on this list as it would be very high up there since Moldova exists thanks to a pact made by Hitler and Stalin.  The Greater Romania Party's slogan was "We will be everything we once were and more than that" if I remember correctly.
  
• Greece?  Greece has had multiple irredentist claims in pretty much every direction--Cyprus, Turkey, and Macedonia (I am probably forgetting others).  I know less about how Greek governments play up Greek nationalism in the schools, but I would bet a fair amount of money that the former greatness of Greece and its domination of the Med play a decent role.  That and ongoing tensions with Turkey and the history of explusions and such, not to mention the dueling irredentism over Cyprus keep alive the idea that, yes, countries nearby have territory that belongs to Greece.
• Bulgaria--that might be aimed at Macedonia, but we didn't focus on Bulgaria in the book.
• Poland was literally shifted several hundred miles to the west so that the USSR could get hunks of it.  So, this is entirely unsurprising.
• Slovakia?  Not sure where there is directed as the secession from the Czech Republic was pretty easy and I am not sure where Slovakians have been left behind.  
• Spain?  Just one word will do: Gibraltar.
• Italy has a contested border with Slovenia with Slovenes living in Italy and Italians living in Slovenia.  
• France? D'accord. 

That Ukraine and Russia are near the top of the list if we include non-NATO countries is hardly surprising as Russia is definitely less than the Soviet Union, leaving behind 25 million Russians in 1991 and Ukraine just did lose a hunk of territory to Russia--we are back to Crimea.  On the other hand, Swedes have few regrets about giving away Norway in 1905.  

The US and Canada are quite low on this list.  Why?  Well, both are settler countries that took away their territory from the Indigenous peoples of North America.  So, they have minor territorial issues with each other and Canada with Denmark (Hans Island, maybe Greenland), but neither Canadians nor Americans are taught in school about territories taken from each other.  Mexico?  That would another thing entirely.

So, with territorial changes over the generations and public education teaching national histories, this survey is what we should have expected.  Are there grounds for real irredentist conflicts among allies as a result?  Mostly not, but also mostly not because of NATO despite folks arguing that NATO and the EU kept things cool in the 1990s via their membership processes.  Why?  Well, for Bill and I, it is partly about political competition--do parties compete to be the best irredentist--and partly about xenophobia--do folks really want to share their welfare state with "others".  Yes, those co-ethnics abroad are not quite "us" anymore after generations of living apart.  One will still care about the plight of those abroad, but they may not want to include them in the homeland, as that would be akin to a massive wave of immigration.  

Which means the wave of populism across Europe will not lead to more irredentism as its nationalism tends to be of a xenophobic flavor.  

In other words, sweat not about Hungarian irredentism.  Hungary will remain obnoxious but not aggressive.