These are very, very contentious claims…does the history of the pan-Andean empires reflect any of them? Is the current Peruvian, or Ecuadorian, state falling apart by intranational conflict?
And by the same token, why would the Inka monarchy be exempt from this rule?
I think this could be a different matter that would belong to a different thread. However, this needs to be clarified here too. South America, unlike most of North America, is not only one of the most geographically and culturally diverse regions in the world, a treasure of mankind... It also has a history of serious conflicts between its countries, and the causes are often much more complex than we can study in history books.
However, I don't understand why it would necessarily mean that there should be intranational conflicts that would make these countries fall apart. Such a thing hasn't happened and hopefully will never happen. However, and what I was referring to, is that you can notice that there has been and that there is social and economic division if you travel through these countries and that there are hundreds of social conflicts going on every year (many of which have roots in the Spanish invasion 5 centuries ago). Even if the media don't show all of them. We all saw examples of this, most noticeably during the times of the terrorism in Peru: Not much was done until the capital itself was attacked, and most of the victims were indigenous people. These two words, "the others", still plays an important role and it still has negative connotations within the Andean countries, between them and within them, instead of the complete and tolerance acceptance that those two words should represent.
The fact that there's much more union now than before but that there still are serious conflicts where people die nowadays (not war-like conflicts, that's in the past. Mostly social and political ones, such as the ones related to the mining companies), could indicate how hard it would be to make a confederacy, if you think about every aspect regarding people, communications, transport, etc. There are some possibilities though, specially maybe after the independence of most South American countries, but I still think it would be hard to maintain. e.g. The Peru-Bolivian Confederation. However, even if hard it could be possible, if we "play" enough with history.
As for the pan-andean empires, you can see how Wari and Tiahuanaco ended up being divided into different kingdoms and chiefdoms once again. It's probably a situation similar to every empire in the world, which usually constitutes many countries and different cultures. The unity in an empire can't be maintained forever, since people tend to maintain their identity, just like what happened with the Roman Empire. Any serious instability can cause it to start to collapse.
The case of the Incas was a bit different since it was almost completely Pan-Andean. It was a scenario similar to the union between the different cultures in ancient China: Even if different, they belonged to a single civilization with common elements, and the unity wasn't so hard when given enough time to develop. Something similar was happening in the Andes, the cultures lived with one another for so long that they had already many common elements and were adopting a single language to communicate with one another, even if it started at the political level for just political purposes. The "empire" was turning into a state, due to the acceptance of most nations to the Inkas' organization, which merely reflected the previous types of Andean organizations, but in a much bigger scale.
But even in that scenario there's a possibility that the Inkas might fall, since it still comprised several kingdoms, nationalities and entities that often rebelled, and any strong crisis could bring to its fall and complete division, which eventually happened when the Spanish arrived. Had they not arrived at that moment and time, other things could have happened: That the Inkas could have fallen but the society would have stayed completely native. Another nation would have followed the Inkas' steps to conquer the Andean nations, or other Andean kings would have established themselves as supreme rulers of the whole Tawantinsuyu. Or maybe the Inkas' would have stayed where they were and established a "stronghold" for the Andean civilization, keeping them alive and learning from the other world cultures, until reaching the 20th century. I was proposing the latter among these possibilities and adding the division factor, and then the division into different "countries" and "republics" so that they can become the beginning of the confederacy proposed in this thread. So I indeed put the Inkas in this kind of "division scenario" as well, but in a different time and period.
But in the end, the pan-Andean empire of the Incas did reflect division (or the Spanish couldn't have managed to conquer the Andes). As for the Spanish empire, it did have division too. Otherwise, there wouldn't have been indigenous rebellions during all of the colonial period.
There's another possibility too, but for the future: Maybe the South American peoples, no matter the language or culture (Portuguese, Spanish, Quechua, Aymara, etc), can set aside their differences and put an effort into conforming one confederacy with a big economic and political influence in the world.
