The most critical issue your society is facing.

[Traitorfish]

What, so you have to be the Soviet Union to crush secessionists now?

It helped that the Soviet Union was, first, a global power second only to USA#1, and second, a ruthlessly authoritarian regime that was able to effectively repress all overt political dissent, neither of which can be said of contemporary Spain.

Ace99 is right...
We've seen secession in Europe recently, and it wasn't the USSR...

Yugoslavia...

Yes, it creates a poop storm.

The Yugoslav situation was much more dramatic than the Spanish one is, or is likely to be. The Madrid government isn't so unstable, and ethnic relations aren't so tense. Messy breakups up like that tend to be the result of a political crisis, rather than the cause of one.

Anyhow, it's a moot point. For Spain to even worry about it, Catalan would have to HAVE some sort of capability to defend its secession. That's how secession works. The unit wanting to leave will probably have to by force.

Only if secession is being prevented by force, and, as I said, it's not at all clear to what extent the Madrid government can or will use military force to keep Catalonia.

 

[kochman]

And which could be said about Serbia?

 

[Traitorfish]

(I think I edited my post before seeing your reply, but I've forgotten what I originally wrote, so could you explain that a bit? I'm apparently not working with all mental systems on right now.)

edit: Wait, no, I'm just being thick, I see what you're replying to.

Yugoslavia is equivalent to neither Spain nor the Warsaw Pact. It wasn't as powerful or effectively authoritarian as the USSR, which is why such protracted secessionists movements were possible, but also wasn't quite as tied to the approval of other nations or of its own populace as Spain. The result is that they were neither swiftly crushed, nor able to achieve independence peacefully.

 

[innonimatu]

Even the USSR eventually had to concede... and to the comparatively tiny baltic republics! So it's not about the size of the military, it's about circumstances.

If the central government is somehow discredited who's going to spot secession? Who's giving the orders, and who's obeying, and for the sake of what?
Which means that the catalans may actually have a window of opportunity soon.

 

[ace99]

I really don't think you need authoritarian structures to stop secession, all you need is a central or federal government with military power unwilling to let the secessionists leave and willing to resort to some force to keep them. Turkey and the Kurds, India and Kashmir + the 15 other secessionist movements, Russia and Checnya and Dagestan, Mexico and the indigenous movements, Spain and ETA, UK and Northern Ireland, France and Algeria, Georgia and Ossetia/Abkhazia and of course the good old USA and the South.

I just don't buy that the Spanish government will allow one of their wealthiest regions to just up and leave without a fight. What country does that? I don't think it'll be Tienanmen Square in Barcelona or anything like that. But really they can't secede unilaterally and if the government doesn't allow it then they're out of luck.

 

[Bugfatty300]

Packs of vicious stray dogs that control most of the inner cities.

 

[Mr. Dictator]

Packs of vicious stray dogs that control most of the inner cities.

Worse is Detroit. Mutated stray dogs.