I'm beginning to wonder if the world would be better off if we were to go back to a model of confederations of sub-nations, be they considered states, regions, etc. that can choose whichever loose confederation they would like to join for the moment. More flexibility to deal with a rapidly-changing world affected by climate pressures, technological pressures, and inequalities.

Big nations = big wars, slow federal response, people mad at a faraway capitol, etc.
Small regions = small wars, faster responses to needs, changes, etc.
Loose confederacies of convenience = flexibility to respond to rapid changes in world stimuli such as environmental catastrophe, economic pressure, displaced people, etc.
National borders = sources of conflict.
regional borders = natural divisions of interest / economic / cultural groups

The UN could become actually relevant.

so now Michigan doesn't have to deal with Texas school textbook ignorance, BC doesn't have to put up with Ottawa, Donetsk doesn't have to worry about whether they are aligned eastward or westward and can just be themselves, and Russians of all types can fall apart into whatever people group they belong to. Big wars take more effort to actually happen because regions can get involved or leave. Nobody cares what happens in Moscow, Washington, or Beijing, and smaller nations can be heard.
-- RayfordSteele, Feb 23 2022

“If there is to be peace in the world, There must be peace in the nations. If there is to be peace in the nations, There must be peace in the cities. If there is to be peace in the cities, There must be peace between neighbors. If there is to be peace between neighbors, There must be peace in the home. If there is to be peace in the home, There must be peace in the heart.

Lao Tzu
-- 4and20, Feb 23 2022


I have been thinking the same thing. Except that small nations tend to build strange coalitions. One recent historian claims that in the war between Athens and Persia, 32 Greek citystates joined Athens, but over 300 citystates joined the Persians.
-- 4and20, Feb 23 2022


The nice thing about coalitions is that they can be temporary. With this kind of thinking, historical alignments become less important in people's minds and places like the Middle East can get over their past.
-- RayfordSteele, Feb 23 2022


Whatever gets the red smears' boot off our necks.
-- 2 fries shy of a happy meal, Feb 23 2022


//small nations tend to build strange coalitions//

Not really. They tend to ally with other nations that share their values or strategic interests or with powerful nations that can protect them from the depredations of stronger, imperialist powers (such as Athens). So an alliance with Persia makes total sense.

The ancient Greeks were quite a diaspora. It's not beyond the realms of possibility that there were more Greeks in 'Persian' territory than there were in Greece.
-- DrBob, Feb 23 2022


Political coffee grinder. All countries are fed into a hopper and ground until only individual humans remain. A sieve or screen filters out any that are non-standard, to be discarded. The remainder are packed into a confined space and flooded with very hot water until their essence flows out of them. The dry remains are discarded and the essence is consumed by
-- pocmloc, Feb 23 2022


It's delicious, a little bitter and salty.
-- pocmloc, Feb 23 2022


So some kind of federated political union, with free and flexible movement of goods, people and capital? Sounds like a great idea! The only danger might be corrupt states not wishing to conform to international law would always seek to break up such arrangements through various machinations by funding propaganda and dissent among those members of the populace with emotive and "identity"/nationalist based activism. Ideally, such rogue states, might support the rise of corrupt and seditious individuals amongst the media and political establishment to further weaken and confuse their foes.
-- zen_tom, Feb 23 2022


//over 300 citystates joined the Persians//

That *might* have had something to do with the enormous Persian army at their gates. [DrBob], your chronology is wrong.

Later the Persians got clever, and just paid the Greek states to fight each other until they were all exhausted.
-- pertinax, Feb 24 2022


No, not a federated. A confederated. With smaller states that have more autonomy, mostly. If states don't wish to join confederation A, they can join confederation B. Or leave for awhile and return. There's no permanent security council, China becomes like 30 tribes or whatever, the US turns into 5 or 6 regions.

Conflicts happen from time to time, but are kept localized by the size of the interested parties. Nobody fears blowing up the world.
-- RayfordSteele, Feb 25 2022


Not my favorite way to simplify civil life, I must say. I'm of the opinion that states or countries of states like with the U.S. are far too numerous. Most counties here were created during horse and buggy days to be readily canvassed or called to order by a day's ride from a county seat. Upon the county maps were laid district lines, apportionment boundaries, and contiguous polling places. Counties were created for various reasons, some out of objection to their home counties' rule, others for bizarre reasons, e.g. "Their sheriff doesn't like where he is and doesn't want to come here, so he should have a new county."

How can a system so derived ever be said to have developed from a basis for unity and congenial political aims? I really think that less, in the sense of fewer, would be more.
-- reensure, Mar 06 2022


You'll never get rid of conflict. But you can shrink the size of it by shrinking the countries involved, so that the earth always has some skirmish somewhere but it doesn’t threaten huge wars.
-- RayfordSteele, Mar 06 2022


This modern era of large countries and huge wars has seen far, far fewer people die as a percentage of population. Small wars don't mean fewer deaths when there are so many of them.
-- Voice, Mar 07 2022


I'd be curious as to how those numbers add up.
-- RayfordSteele, Mar 07 2022



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