National secession

Between 1945 and 2010, there were 171 campaigns of national secession, of which only 26 were successful (pp. 5–6). And, of those 26, 14 were a direct result of the fall of the Soviet Union. Philip Roeder's treatise, that national secession is extremely hard to achieve, is founded on this statistical analysis. Furthermore, most successes are brought about not by moments of ‘bold action’ (p. 20) by the secessionists but because (in 75 per cent of cases) an outside power focuses on the issue and provides the key impetus (p. 6). So what, therefore, is the role of secessionist leaders? Should they just sit on their hands and wait for that strategic moment? Roeder argues that a national secessionist movement needs to be ready to exploit its chances. This requires masterly leadership, which maintains an unerring focus on the key objective but with the ability to both trigger and rein in propaganda, political action and violence as the situation merits. He calls this ‘programmatic coordination’—a rather heavy term with Soviet overtones to describe something which, at its best, should be highly skilled and dextrous. A key requirement is to develop a ‘surge’ capability which is always available for that one moment of historic opportunity

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