Russia’s efforts to redraw the map by taking the Crimean Peninsula in 2014 — and recent attempts to possibly seize other territory from Ukraine — are highly unusual. Putin’s claim that he’s protecting ethnic Russians in Ukraine to justify capturing neighboring territory is extremely rare to see.
Our research shows that irredentist conflicts — waged with the purported goal of capturing territory to incorporate ethnic kin — are frequently violent. Russia’s recent actions toward Ukraine are similar to the tactics it used in Georgia and Moldova to support separatist claims. But Russia has now escalated its tactics in Ukraine by also threatening land grabs. These moves also threaten the territorial integrity norm and could embolden other countries to take back territory that contains their ethnic kin too.
Russian journalists report the facts about Ukraine. Why do Russians ignore them?
We analyzed over 950 territorial and ethnic conflicts
Our Issue Correlates of War research project collects data on diplomatic conflicts between two or more countries over the past two centuries, specifically looking at conflicts that involve land and/or concerns over the treatment of ethnic kin living abroad. One-third of the 843 territorial disputes since 1816 that we’ve coded feature ethnic kin living in contested land areas. We find that war is much more likely to occur when territorial and ethnic issues are connected. In contrast, the settlement of border issues creates opportunities for democratization and peace.
What causes these disputes? In some cases, territorial conflict stems from claims about poor treatment of minorities. It’s also possible for ethnic conflicts to arise independently from border disputes. We examine 133 identity conflicts in which one country complains that another country is treating its ethnic kin poorly. These complaints often involve demands for better treatment of the group in domestic politics (53 percent of the 133 cases). An example is Austrian demands beginning in 1955 that Italy improve its treatment of ethnic Germans living in Italy.
Identity conflicts also involve countries supporting ethnic independence movements (15 percent of cases) — like Russia has done in eastern Ukraine. Countries sometimes make irredentist demands to shift territorial boundaries to reincorporate their ethnic kin into the homeland (32 percent of cases), as Somalia sought to do with ethnic Somali-inhabited areas of Ethiopia and Kenya. Our research suggests that conflict escalation is much more likely when these independence or irredentist motives are present.
Russia has a history of making irredentist claims
Russia has a long track record of making ethnic claims to Ukraine’s territory. Russia contested Crimea’s sovereignty in the early 1990s when Ukraine became an independent country — and again in 2014 when Russia seized the Crimean Peninsula.
Russia has issued many diplomatic complaints about Ukraine’s treatment of ethnic Russians in Ukraine, including a demand to recognize Russian as an official language. Protests leading up to the 2014 Maidan revolution and Crimean conflict arose in part because then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych signed a law that made Russian the official language in parts of Ukraine.
Putin has been redefining ‘sovereignty’ in dangerous ways
Putin increased the scope of Russia’s ethnic claims against Ukraine in recent years, moving from a demand that Ukraine recognize Russians’ language rights to active support of separatist movements in Donetsk and Luhansk. Last week, Putin rejected Ukraine’s sovereignty and used irredentist language to justify expansion of Russian territory to incorporate other parts of Ukraine beyond Crimea The irredentist nature of recent demands, as well as the ongoing territorial dispute over Crimea, help explain why Putin ordered the invasion.
Strong territorial integrity norms decrease conflict
Major powers promoted a norm of territorial integrity after World War II. This aimed to halt the destructive expansionist foreign policies that contributed to the war’s outbreak. The norm sees territorial conquest as unacceptable — and encourages economic pressure (e.g., Western sanctions against Russia’s 2014 annexation of Ukraine) and military actions (e.g., the global response to Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait) to stop territorial incursions.
For the most part, this approach has worked, and the frequency of interstate war declined. Our data show that there are now far fewer territorial disputes. The average country was involved in 2.5 territorial conflicts around World War I but participates in less than 0.5 today — and many conflicts involve small islands rather than large territories. In the same time period, conflict scholars saw reductions in the average number of countries participating in war. The mean number of countries fighting interstate wars declined from five in 1950 to less than 0.5 in 2007.
Will this trend now reverse?
Russia’s potential land grabs in Ukraine, if unchecked by the West, threaten long-established norms against conquest which have been predominant in the international system in the 70 years since World War II.
In recent decades, most countries have been content with taking small pieces of land to avoid escalation to war. For example, China secured a small change in the Line of Actual Control in border clashes with India in 2020, and also pushed past status quo boundaries with Taiwan with repeated incursions into Taiwan’s sea and air spaces.
If Russia faces few real consequences, whether it annexes Ukrainian territory or partitions the country, this sets a dangerous precedent. Would other countries — including China — take similar moves to capture territory with force? However, if the international community is able to impose sufficient economic and military costs on Russia, the clear signals that the global community will not tolerate conquest could reduce the risk that other potential aggressors will be emboldened.
Kenya’s U.N. ambassador, Martin Kimani, argued last week that rejecting irredentism and expansionism is the only path forward for maintaining peace in the international system. Our data support this claim.
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Paul Hensel is a professor of political science at the University of North Texas and an expert on territorial disputes, river disputes and international rivalries.
Sara Mitchell is the F. Wendell Miller Professor of Political Science at the University of Iowa and co-editor of “What Do We Know About War?” (Rowman & Littlefield, 2021). Follow her on Twitter at @sbmitche.
Andrew Owsiak is Josiah Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professor and professor of international affairs at the University of Georgia. He is the co-author of “On Dangerous Ground” (Cambridge University Press, 2021).
Krista Wiegand is director of global security at the Howard H. Baker Center for Public Policy and associate professor of political science at the University of Tennessee, and author of “Enduring Territorial Disputes” (University of Georgia Press, 2011). Follow her on Twitter at @drkristawiegand.