Imperial powers drew frontiers that maximize future regional conflict

Evidence

There are also claims by Arab states on non-Arab states, such as the Syrian claim, never renounced, to the Sanjak of Alexandretta; the Libyan claim to ter­ ritory in Chad; and the Moroccan claim to the Spanish Presidios. Some claims are not specifically about land or people but about resources, the most important being the Turkish control over the headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates, an irritation to Syria and still more to Iraq. There are many more such claims which have been or may be asserted between the former Soviet republics in Central Asia and Transcaucasia. If the Soviets had devised the frontiers with a view to causing future trouble, they hardly could have done a better job. — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans, 1614

Categorization

• CANDY: Snappy aphoristic verdict on imperial mapmaking — easy to repeat.
• XREF: Rebukes Lewis’s own analytic register — deliberately refrains from denying that imperialism caused these fractures; useful to quote against readings of Lewis as pure apologetics. — connects to: A dominant imperial power can cap sectarian violence while institutionalizing its basis. — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized:…, 2238; Map names are the primary instrument of imperial spatial power.