newest country

This week, Scottish voters go to the polls to make a big decision: Should they stay a part of the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland, or become an independent sovereign state?

It's an enormous decision, and the debate over what exactly will happen to Scotland if it does go independent is still waging. One thing is certain, however: if the "yes" vote wins, Scotland will become the newest independent state in the world, pushing South Sudan to Number 2 and Kosovo to Number 3.

Will Scotland follow the same fate as any of the other young nations in the world? Perhaps, but probably not. A glance down the list of the nine newest sovereign states below reveals that each situation is unique: It's hard to fully equate Scotland's situation with that of Slovakia, let alone with East Timor.

Even so, a glance back at history does show that the world's borders are changing more than we might appreciate: And the changes can sometimes take some time to settle.

South Sudan declared independence from Sudan on July 9, 2011, after a bloody civil war with the ethnically Arab north that had lasted decades. Almost 99 percent of voters had voted for independence in a referendum, and the new country was swiftly recognized by the international community. The United States played a key role in the South Sudan's journey to statehood.

However, since independence the country has faced a number of problems, most of which can be traced back to two big factors: 1) South Sudan's high poverty rate, 2) the ethnically diverse political movements in the country that now lack a common enemy. Add to that large and largely untapped natural resources, and you have a young country that has been beset by political infighting in the past few years.

Right now, South Sudan is nine months into a civil war that has displaced a million of its 11 million people, and facing a famine that could see 50,000 children die before the end of the year.

Kosovo declared independence from Serbia on Feb. 17, 2008. The country had been administered by the United Nations since 1999, when NATO bombed Serbia and forced then-President Slobodan Milosevic to withdraw his troops from the ethnically divided province.

Kosovo's independence was opposed by Russia, which warned of other breakaway movements (worth remembering during the Crimea crisis) and Serbia, which had expressed fears for the ethnic Serbs who live there. While a small majority of U.N. member states recognize Kosovo, the country has not applied for U.N. membership out of concern.

Kosovo's post-independence statehood has not been free of problems: Ethnic tension and organized crime remain, and the country's economy is clearly underdeveloped (the official unemployment rate last year was 45 percent).
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/09/16/the-9-newest-countries-in-the-world/