Yeah, except the thing is, the Balkans actually had an ethnically and religiously diverse population that led it to be “Balkanized”. All groups involved had a long standing hostility towards each other that was only kept in check by royalist rule, and after WWII, by the policies of Tito, who forcibly moved people from their ethnic heritage areas to other parts of the country, as to mix up the population.
It worked for him, but in the absence of someone like him, it broke down, and all the people who had been moved started carrying out their old greviances. Yugoslavia is actually a good metaphor for the United States, because of what our history is, and how our system is set up. In most countries, the state-level entity is just a subdepartment of the national government, in this country we actually have seperate state and local governments. There is no chain of command. A President cannot issue an order to say, a Mayor under threat of removal of office, as they can in most countries.
This is why this insane desire I have seen from people both on the left and right to impose national policies without a regard for what a local opinion is on it is dangerous. Our state boundaries were arbitrarily drawn without concern for culture, and our national border doesn’t exactly fit a culturally defined region either. If the federal government continues it’s policies towards expansion and increased national authority, at some point, there will be a backlash, case in point, just look at state legislatures. In most states in this country, there is some geographic split that defines politics, and this carries out on a national level. It’s been this way since we were a country, because by it’s definition, freedom doesn’t encourage homogenity.
This is why it is critical that state’s rights be defended at all costs, because increasing national authority will only serve to divide the country even more.