Confederations Dissolve. Washington Errs When It Ignores Reality: Both Somaliland and South Yemen say they want independence. In both cases, their independence would benefit U.S. national security yet, in both cases, the State Department rejects recognition, essentially arguing once in a marriage a country must remain wed no matter how abuse its partner becomes.

The State Department explains that it recognizes existing borders and that allowing states to fracture could set precedents and unleash chaos. To some extent that is true, especially in states facing secession movements without precedent as independent states. Nigeria, Ethiopia, Pakistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo and even Russia and China could all theoretically collapse into constituent units. The problem comes when the State Department confuses these cases with confederated states seeking to revert to their previous status. Whereas the United State once blessed their disunion to the benefit of both freedom and security, today the State Department does the opposite, often achieving results inimical to both freedom and U.S. strategic interests.

Consider the history of dissolution:

In 1958, Egypt briefly united with Syria to former the United Arab Republic. After his successful nationalization of the Suez Canal, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser was an outsized figured in the Arab world. He had numerous supporters in Syria, a state both Nasser and the West feared could fall to communism. Syrians expected they would be equal partners in the new Republic, but Nasser had other ideas. Egypt was bigger and, in Nasser’s view, more important and so had every right to dominate the union. By 1961, the marriage was over. After a coup d’état in Syria, Syria dissolved the union.

The Hashemite Arab Federation, a monarchist block that formed in reaction to the United Arab Republic and briefly united Jordan and Iraq lasted less than six months, dissolving when revolutionaries overthrew the Iraqi monarchy in 1958.

President Richard Nixon and his National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger masterminded the secret diplomacy that led Washington to recognize the People’s Republic of China. While Kissinger and President Jimmy Carter may have been fine throwing Taiwan under the bus, Congress was not. Rhetoric of “One China” or not, the United States supports Taiwan and its right to exist as a separate entity outside Chinese Communist control.

In Africa, colonial powers drew borders with little regard to the ethnic and linguistic topography. In December 1950, the United States supported federation between Ethiopia and Eritrea. Again, it was not a happy union and, in 1991, Eritrea regained its independence, against with U.S. support. Among the most bizarre borders in Africa are those of The Gambia, a former British colony that spans both banks of the Gambia River as it runs through the former French colony Senegal. Gambia is only 31 miles at its widest, while its Atlantic coast is 50 miles long, the third shortest in Africa. A popular but apocryphal story suggests the British marked the borders by firing cannonballs from the river, drawing the border where they landed. In reality, the British and French drew the borders at a slightly greater range in the last decade of the 19th century. The Gambia’s economy revolved around its river. What was Gambia’s gain was Senegal’s loss, though, as international borders essentially cut the country in half, handicapping cohesion and economy. In 1981, the two countries agreed to confederate, joining militaries, economy, and currency and inaugurated the Senegambia Confederation early the next year. A Senegalese would always be president, and a Gambian his vice president.

In practice, it never worked. One hundred and fifty years of different colonial influences and created schisms too great to overcome. Distrust grew over economic stewardship and, in 1989, Gambia sued to dissolve the union. Facing separate tension with Maurit