Fred Frederikse: Millistates could mean an end to war

AN END TO WAR? The possible millistates of Europe (divisions based on "the United States of Europe" by Dutch beer baron Freddie Heineken using beer distribution regions) as created by Fred Frederikse.

In the 1960s an eccentric English aristocrat, Alexander Thynn, the 7th Marquis of Bath, proposed that the world should consist of a thousand roughly equal population states.

Alexander's father had been wounded in North Africa in World War II, and his father had only become the previous 6th marquis because his older brother had been killed in the Belgium trenches in World War I. Empires cause wars, young Alexander reasoned - better to dismantle them.

At that time New Zealand - along with 70 other states such as Austria, Cuba, Israel and Laos - fell into that order of magnitude. Let's call them "millistates" (states with a median population of just over seven million).

Since then another 20 have joined the list. Independent millistates such as Belarus, Turkmenistan, Bosnia and Croatia appeared after the sundering of the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia, while Czechoslovakia split into the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Newly independent colonies such as Papua New Guinea have become millistates. Most recently South Sudan voted to become one, while Syria is trying to break into two millistates and, to illustrate the marquis' original observation, the main suppliers of military hardware to that conflict are the United States, Russia and China.

In India there are aspirant millistates such as Bodoland and Gorkaland, and there is the Chin state in Burma, with the potential millistate of Kashmir straddling the India-Pakistan border.

Indonesia, after the fall of Suharto, devolved political and economic power to their regions (roughly the size of millistates) to placate independence campaigns from regions such as Banda Aceh.

China, on its periphery, has aspirant millistates such as Hong Kong, Tibet and Xinjiang and in Europe there are independence movements in the Basque country, Catalonia, and Flanders.

In summary the geo-political trend since World War II indicates the formation of a world of millistates along the Marquis of Bath's lines.

Even the United States is not immune. In June 2016, when a 52-48 majority in the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union using the hashtag #Brexit on social media, there was renewed interest that Texas formalise efforts to secede from the US, using the hashtag #Texit.

The UK, after their historic Brexit vote, faces revisiting Scotland's call for independence.

During Scotland's recent vote on whether to leave the UK and form an independent Scotland but still be in the EU, the "Yes" faction believed Scotland should take back responsibility, secure funds from North Sea oil and stop building nuclear weapons - and use their resources and finances to create jobs, with more equal wages and a fairer social system.

Meanwhile, the "No to independence" faction ran a campaign of fear. Scotland can't make its way on its own, they said, adding that independence created an unsure economic future with doubtful benefits for the individual.

They theorised that it was doubtful whether the UK would remain in the EU (which came to pass). The pro-UK block followed the military line that in a dangerous world it is better to have strong partners and nuclear weapons.

President Barack Obama said that the US had a "deep interest" in the UK remaining united, while Bill Clinton waved both a stick and a carrot saying that Scotland would have difficulty establishing its own currency, face protracted negotiations to join the EU and that the UK was promising increased autonomy.

Should the Marquis of Bath's prediction of a world of one thousand roughly equal population states come to pass, what would this mean for the UK?

It would mean an independent Scotland and Wales - and Northern Ireland would have no option but to join the rest of Ireland. The millistate of the Greater London urban area would probably continue to exist as one of the great global financial centres and to the north there would be another largely urban millistate centred on Manchester, with the rest of England divided into four or five rural/urban millistates.

To the southwest of London there would be the millistate of Wessex, were the Marquis of Bath, now in his 80s, still lives.

The disintegration of the world's superpower states and the creation of more millistates probably wouldn't mark the end of the world - and it might just put an end to war.

**When Fred Frederikse is not building, he is a self-directed student of geography and traveller. In his spare time he is co-chair of the Whanganui Musicians' Club