by Robin Wright

About the author: Robin Wright is a staff writer for the Los Angeles Times daily newspaper.

In Georgia, little Abkhazia and South Ossetia both seek secession, while Kurds want to carve a state out of Turkey. French Quebec edges toward separation from Canada, as deaths in Kashmir’s Muslim insurgency against Hindu-dominated India pass the 6,000-mark. Kazakhstan’s tongue-twisting face-off pits ethnic Kazakhs against Russian Cossacks, while Scots in Britain, Tutsis in Rwanda, Basques and Catalans in Spain and Tuaregs in Mali and Niger all seek varying degrees of self-rule or statehood.

Tribal Hatreds

The world’s now dizzying array of ethnic hot spots—at least four dozen at last count—starkly illustrates how, of all the features of the post-Cold War world, the most consistently troubling are turning out...