I've never understood why countries insist on trying to incorporate lands that do not want to be part of them. It's like willfully bringing a bunch of terrorists into your fold. If Russia succeeds in taking over Ukraine do they think the people of Ukraine are going to willingly become model citizens of Russia? The same with Taiwan and China. In fact, I'd go so far as to apply this to states in the US. If the South wants to secede, let them. They'll soon find out how much support they were getting from the northern states and how much it costs to build and equip an army and run their own healthcare system. Same thing in the Middle East and Africa, if a group of people does not want to be part of your country then forcing them to be part of it seems likely to cause endless trouble for decades. While some of these conflicts are about natural resources, not all of them are. Seems like the resource conflicts could be solved by just sharing the resources. Maybe that's too simplistic a view though, what other factors might be involved?