Understanding Sovereign and Nation-States

Okay. Now, here in the modern era, pretty much every square inch of planet Earth or the land surface of planet Earth has been divided up into distinct geographic areas that have been politically and legally defined as independent sovereign states. Oh, oh, ding ding ding ding, key term, sovereign state. These sovereign states are owned and operated by the governments of those places. And even the measly few square inches of land on planet Earth that are not outright claimed as part of a sovereign state already there are pretty much international treaties and policies in place agreed upon by all the sovereign states of the statuses of those areas. Some of them are disputed, but most of them are agreed upon and I'm thinking of places like Antarctica. It's a huge area. It's not a state, but all the other states of the world have said, okay well, here's what we're gonna do. We'll make this arrangement. We'll divide it up later. For now, we'll just let it go. So every place on planet Earth is kind of in this sovereign state system even the places that are not, if that makes any sense. So since this is the international accepted norm, this concept of the sovereign state, and for the first time in human history every square inch has been explored and charted and mapped and claimed by a state, it's kind of important to understand what this whole sovereign state nonsense is all about. Okay, so what is it all about? Well, look at the map of sovereign states on planet Earth. It is kind of a new concept and something should resonate immediately with you looking at this map. What's kind of strange about this? Here you look at the purple. It's showing you the oldest states in the world before 1800. They have a continuous lineage before 1800 being an independent sovereign state. Well, I mean the United States is in that category. How could that be? The US is one of the youngest states on the planet. but it's one of the oldest sovereign states. Exactly, that's because it's not the state that's that old, it's the concept is that new. Other really old sovereign states, China, Iran, many of the European countries, and that's not a coincidence because they're the ones who thought up the whole concept of the sovereign state. But most of the planet falls into a much younger category. A lot of the New World about a couple hundred or one hundred years old in terms of sovereign state lineage, but most of Africa Look at the old USSR. Most of these places are 50 or 60 years old or much much much younger. And again, this reinforces the concept. This is a new idea. The world's been around forever. The sovereign state concept is what's new and it really has been embraced by the entire planet. Okay, so what do people do before this awesome concept of the sovereign state became all the rage in the world in the last 300 or 400 years? Well, for most of human history people would have first identified themselves with a group of other people, not a territory per se. They would have said, I'm a part of this ethnic group or this clan or this tribe or this culture or this nation. Think about this. People move around a lot, so they weren't tied to a territory. They're tied to the peoples like them. Like-minded peoples getting together would have put a person in charge or maybe a person came to power by force. or maybe they elected him as their leader, or maybe God blessed a certain person and they became the leader. Whatever. And those leaders would be called like monarchs, kings, queens, emperors, and these folks were the leader or sovereign ruler or sovereign of the peoples. Not a place. Yes, there's territory involved. Obviously, they're people. They have to be living somewhere, but that's actually quite secondary. A thousand years ago you didn't have the king of France. You had the king of the Franks, the Frankish people. Yes, a thousand years ago you had a Chinese emperor who was in charge of the Chinese empire, but he was the leader of the Chinese peoples. That's his job, the peoples. It's quite different from today's world where everything's tied to territory. First and foremost. See? Little tricky. Things have changed over the years. Now, there's lots of terms here you've probably heard. Let's flesh out some of these and they may help you understand the concept and how this has evolved over time. You've probably heard things like a state, sovereign state we've been referring to, or a nation. Those are quite distinct actually from a nation state. So what are these three terms? What are they all about? You should know these. First off is the state. We've already been mentioned it a million times already. Here in the United States, this is a little tricky, because you call the state a country. And so you say the country of Finland or the country of New Zealand. You should be calling it state. On the international stage those are states. And here's why it's tricky for people in the US because the US is the United States of America. So the technical term is the state of the United States. Everybody's like, ah, it's too confusing. We'll call it a country. That's fine. But just realize when you hear the word state on the international stage, it's synonymous with country. So a state is a legally defined territory that has been recognized by other states, and that's crucial. So crucial we're going to come back and explore that in much detail here in a little bit. But legally defined territory recognized by other states. There are 193 states on planet Earth right now. Maybe 194, 195 because there's some new ones coming on board, but 193 is the number to remember. Solid. 193. Sovereign states in today's world. Quite different from a nation. And a nation is a group of people. Oh, back to the peeps. A group of people who share a common culture, who may want to have their own government, may want to rule themselves in a defined territory, and there are unlimited numbers of nations. You can make your own nation if you like. Get a bunch of people together and share a common culture and you can name your own nation. But there are lots of them out there, perhaps an infinite number. And maybe some of you heard of like the Cherokee, a Native American nation of folks, which is different from the Aztec nation, group of folks who led Mexico several hundred years back, or the Zulu in Africa. In fact, there's hundreds of nations and tribes in Africa, or the Scots in Scotland, or the Persians in Iran. Or the Mongolians, maybe you've heard of the Kurds, and maybe even some easier ones like the French. Yeah, it's a group of people with a common culture. I mean they eat snails and surrender. Or the Germans, that's another distinct common culture group of people. The Japanese, the Koreans, the list can go on and on and on. And that is quite different from something we're gonna call the nation-state. Now a nation-state is, as you might be thinking already, you put the two terms together. Talked about a nation, we talked about a state, slam them together. A nation-state is a group of people who share a common culture, who may want to rule themselves, may want to have their own government in a defined territory, and do so in a recognized political area named a state. Ha! There you go. A nation-state. Can you think of any nation-states on planet Earth? A lot of the ones we just named with nations are nation-states. Germany. Oh, the Germans, of course. They are German people, common culture, and they have their defined state called Germany. The Frenchies right next door, same deal, but they're surrendering. All of Europe actually, you can go all around Europe and be like, Oh, yeah, the Dutch, that's a nation-state. The Belgians are different from them. The Italians, the Spaniards, yes. All of Europe is pretty much nation-states. No surprises, they invented the whole damn term and the idea of sovereign state itself. We'll come back to that. But there's lots of other sovereign nation states around planet Earth as well like Iran, classic example, been around forever. China, Japan, excellent example. Korea, perhaps the best example there is of a nation state. Why would I suggest it's the best? Because it is 100% ethnically, culturally Korean people. That's it. In a defined area they call Korea. I mean, when you fill out the Korean census every 10 years, and you have to check the box on personal information and it'll say, what is your ethnic group? Box one is Korean and box two is get out. All right, we only have Koreans here. So it's an excellent example of a nation-state. Japan's like 99% pure Japanese people too. So it's another very good example. Okay, let's ask another question though. Is every state in the world a nation-state? Because now I'm bleeding over a lot of things and I talked about nations like Germany, France, and Japan. Then I talked about nation states like Germany, France, and Japan. So is every state a nation state? What do you think? Not really. There are some entities on planet Earth that are states but they don't fall nicely into the nation state category. Places like hell, I don't know, start at home. The United States. Is the United States a nation state? Is there a common culture? A group of people with a shared common culture? Everybody speak the same language. I have the same religion, same ethnic group, and the United States? No, we don't have any of that stuff. India is another great example too. These are multicultural, multi-religious, multi-ethnic societies. They don't fit tightly into the nation-state category. There are other better places even like Sudan and Africa that has a very distinct two-nation status inside of a state. The north are Arabic folks, of Islamic religion. The South is black African Christian animist folks. Two distinct groups inside of a singular sovereign state called Sudan. 2011 update. I was so right about the words I just uttered about the state of Sudan that it actually has since split into two separate sovereign states. After two devastating civil wars between North and South, That left millions dead, the two sides, the two nations have agreed to go their separate ways and South Sudan became an independent state by UN referendum that was passed on July 9th, 2011. So we had two different nations within one state of Sudan that have become something closer to two separate sovereign nation states, Sudan. and South Sudan. South Sudan itself is the newest state on planet Earth, still politically unstable and fragile as one of the poorest most troubled states. So let's hope it survives. A lot of African states actually fall into that category. Not really good examples of nation states. Some of them have 10, 20 different tribes of folks that may not always get together well. Now before I leave the United States, not suggesting that we don't have a shared common culture, but the US is quite unique in this. respect in that many people actually would consider the US a sovereign state. I do myself and it's not because of a shared ethnicity or religion or language or none of that stuff. That's how most other nations have defined themselves. The US does have a common culture though more based on ideas, on ideology. Everybody who comes to the United States shares these certain ideas. Personal freedoms. personal human liberties and human rights and even free market capitalism and the ability to do whatever you want to within a certain extent. And yes, and everybody, yeah, we all agree on that. That's our common culture. The US has a common culture of ideas and that makes it quite unique in the world, but we'll throw it into the nation-state category anyway. Don't assume all states on the planet are nation-states. You'll find that many states on the planet that have ongoing civil wars Or friction internally in society are places that precisely are not distinct nation states that have different groups of people who may or may not like each other in the single state. Okay, next question. Can we have a nation then without a state? Oh, yeah, of course you can. I mean many of the ones we listed already are not sovereign states. They are groups of folks with a common culture, but they do not have that political arena called the state of which they rule themselves in. And there's some very famous ones of these as well like the Basque of Northern Spain. Very distinct common culture group of people, many of which who want to have their own state and want to rule themselves but they don't. They're part of Spain. Or the Kurds, a very distinct cultural group of folks located across parts of Turkey, Syria, Northern Iraq, Iran that for hundreds of years have been petitioning and begging and trying to form their own Kurdish Sovereign state to no avail. Over in sovereign state Georgia you have Abkhazians and a nation of Ossetians which are trying to form their own state. And we would be remiss without at least mentioning Palestine. It's a nation of folks, nation of Palestinians who are trying to form their sovereign state. It does not yet exist even though most assume it does. Or perhaps the Kosovars in Kosovo which is a part of sovereign Serbia, another group, nation without a state who's trying to become a sovereign state. Now, mentioning that, why don't the sovereign states like Serbia or Georgia just let these little territories go? I mean, Kosovo's like this big. I mean, why not let Kurdistan or Kosovo or Waziristan or Texas become their own state? Here's the territory. Have at it. Well, it never happens and here's why. Sovereign states. Never ever, never ever, never ever, never ever, never ever, never ever, never ever, never, never, never ever willingly give up territory. Ever! Not today's world. Now I know what a lot of you are thinking. Oh, wait a minute. The Russians sold Alaskan territory to the United States. Oh, and the French? So the Louisiana purchased the United States. They gave up territory Yeah, for a whole bunch of money and that was a couple hundred years ago. I'm suggesting in today's world does not happen. No sovereign state gives up territory without a tremendous fight or a whole lot of money one or the other and why is that? Well, because you never know. You just never know. What do I mean by that? You never know what that little territory might be worth. You never know what the strategic value of it might be on top or the resources that lie underneath. Let me give you a quick example. Let's create a territory that you would think nobody would want. Let's create an island off the coast of California. Let's cover that island ten miles high with dog shit. Let's call it Dog Shit Island. Who would want Dog Shit Island? Wouldn't the United States just give Dogshit Island away to anybody who would want it or let it become its own sovereign state if the residents of Dogshit Island wanted to become their own state? The United States never would do it. And in fact, if anybody even attempted to invade Dogshit Island, the Marines and the Army and Navy would be there to blow them out of the water to protect Dogshit Island. Why? Because you never know. What if ten years from now a scientist invents a fuel that's 1,000 times better than gasoline? and it's made out of dog shit. Oh, that's why you never give up territory. And you can't predict future geopolitical situations either. You never give up a territory that might... attack you later. They might get taken over by an enemy later. They might have bombs pointed at you later. Sovereign states never ever in the modern era give up territory without a tremendous fight. Some of which we'll talk about during this semester. Okay, so if all those little dinky areas are trying to become a sovereign state, and I'm suggesting it's not gonna happen easily, how does one become a sovereign state? How does an entity become a sovereign state? What does it take? And when I ask this question to Folks, students, parents, peoples of the world. I say, hey, what do you think it takes to have a state? Well, if you as a homework project had to go start a state, what do you got to have? And people come up with lots of answers. Everybody's convinced. Here are the things you need for a state. A lot of people would say you need territory. That's a good one, kind of do. You might need a government. Oh, I mean you can't be a state without a government. And then you need a leader of that government, leader of the state. Maybe a constitution, some sort of document describing the state and how it's gonna run. Or an army, you know, and marines and the navy to protect the state. Or the police to enforce the laws of the state. An economy, I mean you have to make money in order to have a state. You have to have an economy. Or you have to print money. I mean you can't be a state unless you have your own money. Or oh, a flag! You should have a flag to be a state. You have to have a symbol of the state. I come henceforth and plant my flag and this is my State. Ha! Here's the real deal. You don't need any of that stuff to become a state. Any of it. Yeah, almost all the sovereign states of the planet have some of those elements. Some don't. The only thing you really need to become a state, you could do this yourself if you can pull it off. The only thing you need is this magical little term I've been referring to this entire time called sovereignty. Ha ha ha! If you have sovereignty the rest of that stuff is details and sovereignty is so important and it's changing so fast in today's world it's deserving of an entire lecture on its own and we'll get to that next.

And even the measly few square inches of land on planet Earth that are not outright claimed as part of a sovereign state already there are pretty much international treaties and policies in place agreed upon by all the sovereign states of the statuses of those areas. Some of them are disputed, but most of them are agreed upon and I'm thinking of places like Antarctica. It's a huge area. It's not a state, but all the other states of the world have said, okay well, here's what we're gonna do.

We'll make this arrangement. We'll divide it up later. For now, we'll just let it go. So every place on planet Earth is kind of in this sovereign state system even the places that are not, if that makes any sense.

So since this is the international accepted norm, this concept of the sovereign state, and for the first time in human history every square inch has been explored and charted and mapped and claimed by a state, it's kind of important to understand what this whole sovereign state nonsense is all about. Okay, so what is it all about? Well, look at the map of sovereign states on planet Earth. It is kind of a new concept and something should resonate immediately with you looking at this map.

What's kind of strange about this? Here you look at the purple. It's showing you the oldest states in the world before 1800. They have a continuous lineage before 1800 being an independent sovereign state.

Well, I mean the United States is in that category. How could that be? The US is one of the youngest states on the planet.

but it's one of the oldest sovereign states. Exactly, that's because it's not the state that's that old, it's the concept is that new. Other really old sovereign states, China, Iran, many of the European countries, and that's not a coincidence because they're the ones who thought up the whole concept of the sovereign state.

But most of the planet falls into a much younger category. A lot of the New World about a couple hundred or one hundred years old in terms of sovereign state lineage, but most of Africa Look at the old USSR. Most of these places are 50 or 60 years old or much much much younger.

And again, this reinforces the concept. This is a new idea. The world's been around forever. The sovereign state concept is what's new and it really has been embraced by the entire planet.

Okay, so what do people do before this awesome concept of the sovereign state became all the rage in the world in the last 300 or 400 years? Well, for most of human history people would have first identified themselves with a group of other people, not a territory per se. They would have said, I'm a part of this ethnic group or this clan or this tribe or this culture or this nation. Think about this. People move around a lot, so they weren't tied to a territory.

They're tied to the peoples like them. Like-minded peoples getting together would have put a person in charge or maybe a person came to power by force. or maybe they elected him as their leader, or maybe God blessed a certain person and they became the leader.

Whatever. And those leaders would be called like monarchs, kings, queens, emperors, and these folks were the leader or sovereign ruler or sovereign of the peoples. Not a place. Yes, there's territory involved. Obviously, they're people.

They have to be living somewhere, but that's actually quite secondary. A thousand years ago you didn't have the king of France. You had the king of the Franks, the Frankish people. Yes, a thousand years ago you had a Chinese emperor who was in charge of the Chinese empire, but he was the leader of the Chinese peoples. That's his job, the peoples.

It's quite different from today's world where everything's tied to territory. First and foremost. See? Little tricky. Things have changed over the years.

Now, there's lots of terms here you've probably heard. Let's flesh out some of these and they may help you understand the concept and how this has evolved over time. You've probably heard things like a state, sovereign state we've been referring to, or a nation.

Those are quite distinct actually from a nation state. So what are these three terms? What are they all about?

You should know these. First off is the state. We've already been mentioned it a million times already. Here in the United States, this is a little tricky, because you call the state a country. And so you say the country of Finland or the country of New Zealand.

You should be calling it state. On the international stage those are states. And here's why it's tricky for people in the US because the US is the United States of America.

So the technical term is the state of the United States. Everybody's like, ah, it's too confusing. We'll call it a country.

That's fine. But just realize when you hear the word state on the international stage, it's synonymous with country. So a state is a legally defined territory that has been recognized by other states, and that's crucial. So crucial we're going to come back and explore that in much detail here in a little bit. But legally defined territory recognized by other states.

There are 193 states on planet Earth right now. Maybe 194, 195 because there's some new ones coming on board, but 193 is the number to remember. Solid. 193. Sovereign states in today's world.

Quite different from a nation. And a nation is a group of people. Oh, back to the peeps. A group of people who share a common culture, who may want to have their own government, may want to rule themselves in a defined territory, and there are unlimited numbers of nations.

You can make your own nation if you like. Get a bunch of people together and share a common culture and you can name your own nation. But there are lots of them out there, perhaps an infinite number.

And maybe some of you heard of like the Cherokee, a Native American nation of folks, which is different from the Aztec nation, group of folks who led Mexico several hundred years back, or the Zulu in Africa. In fact, there's hundreds of nations and tribes in Africa, or the Scots in Scotland, or the Persians in Iran. Or the Mongolians, maybe you've heard of the Kurds, and maybe even some easier ones like the French. Yeah, it's a group of people with a common culture.

I mean they eat snails and surrender. Or the Germans, that's another distinct common culture group of people. The Japanese, the Koreans, the list can go on and on and on.

And that is quite different from something we're gonna call the nation-state. Now a nation-state is, as you might be thinking already, you put the two terms together. Talked about a nation, we talked about a state, slam them together.

A nation-state is a group of people who share a common culture, who may want to rule themselves, may want to have their own government in a defined territory, and do so in a recognized political area named a state. Ha! There you go. A nation-state.

Can you think of any nation-states on planet Earth? A lot of the ones we just named with nations are nation-states. Germany. Oh, the Germans, of course.

They are German people, common culture, and they have their defined state called Germany. The Frenchies right next door, same deal, but they're surrendering. All of Europe actually, you can go all around Europe and be like, Oh, yeah, the Dutch, that's a nation-state.

The Belgians are different from them. The Italians, the Spaniards, yes. All of Europe is pretty much nation-states.

No surprises, they invented the whole damn term and the idea of sovereign state itself. We'll come back to that. But there's lots of other sovereign nation states around planet Earth as well like Iran, classic example, been around forever. China, Japan, excellent example. Korea, perhaps the best example there is of a nation state.

Why would I suggest it's the best? Because it is 100% ethnically, culturally Korean people. That's it.

In a defined area they call Korea. I mean, when you fill out the Korean census every 10 years, and you have to check the box on personal information and it'll say, what is your ethnic group? Box one is Korean and box two is get out.

All right, we only have Koreans here. So it's an excellent example of a nation-state. Japan's like 99% pure Japanese people too.

So it's another very good example. Okay, let's ask another question though. Is every state in the world a nation-state?

Because now I'm bleeding over a lot of things and I talked about nations like Germany, France, and Japan. Then I talked about nation states like Germany, France, and Japan. So is every state a nation state? What do you think? Not really.

There are some entities on planet Earth that are states but they don't fall nicely into the nation state category. Places like hell, I don't know, start at home. The United States. Is the United States a nation state?

Is there a common culture? A group of people with a shared common culture? Everybody speak the same language. I have the same religion, same ethnic group, and the United States? No, we don't have any of that stuff.

India is another great example too. These are multicultural, multi-religious, multi-ethnic societies. They don't fit tightly into the nation-state category.

There are other better places even like Sudan and Africa that has a very distinct two-nation status inside of a state. The north are Arabic folks, of Islamic religion. The South is black African Christian animist folks.

Two distinct groups inside of a singular sovereign state called Sudan. 2011 update. I was so right about the words I just uttered about the state of Sudan that it actually has since split into two separate sovereign states. After two devastating civil wars between North and South, That left millions dead, the two sides, the two nations have agreed to go their separate ways and South Sudan became an independent state by UN referendum that was passed on July 9th, 2011. So we had two different nations within one state of Sudan that have become something closer to two separate sovereign nation states, Sudan.

and South Sudan. South Sudan itself is the newest state on planet Earth, still politically unstable and fragile as one of the poorest most troubled states. So let's hope it survives. A lot of African states actually fall into that category.

Not really good examples of nation states. Some of them have 10, 20 different tribes of folks that may not always get together well. Now before I leave the United States, not suggesting that we don't have a shared common culture, but the US is quite unique in this. respect in that many people actually would consider the US a sovereign state.

I do myself and it's not because of a shared ethnicity or religion or language or none of that stuff. That's how most other nations have defined themselves. The US does have a common culture though more based on ideas, on ideology. Everybody who comes to the United States shares these certain ideas.

Personal freedoms. personal human liberties and human rights and even free market capitalism and the ability to do whatever you want to within a certain extent. And yes, and everybody, yeah, we all agree on that.

That's our common culture. The US has a common culture of ideas and that makes it quite unique in the world, but we'll throw it into the nation-state category anyway. Don't assume all states on the planet are nation-states. You'll find that many states on the planet that have ongoing civil wars Or friction internally in society are places that precisely are not distinct nation states that have different groups of people who may or may not like each other in the single state. Okay, next question.

Can we have a nation then without a state? Oh, yeah, of course you can. I mean many of the ones we listed already are not sovereign states.

They are groups of folks with a common culture, but they do not have that political arena called the state of which they rule themselves in. And there's some very famous ones of these as well like the Basque of Northern Spain. Very distinct common culture group of people, many of which who want to have their own state and want to rule themselves but they don't. They're part of Spain.

Or the Kurds, a very distinct cultural group of folks located across parts of Turkey, Syria, Northern Iraq, Iran that for hundreds of years have been petitioning and begging and trying to form their own Kurdish Sovereign state to no avail. Over in sovereign state Georgia you have Abkhazians and a nation of Ossetians which are trying to form their own state. And we would be remiss without at least mentioning Palestine. It's a nation of folks, nation of Palestinians who are trying to form their sovereign state.

It does not yet exist even though most assume it does. Or perhaps the Kosovars in Kosovo which is a part of sovereign Serbia, another group, nation without a state who's trying to become a sovereign state. Now, mentioning that, why don't the sovereign states like Serbia or Georgia just let these little territories go? I mean, Kosovo's like this big.

I mean, why not let Kurdistan or Kosovo or Waziristan or Texas become their own state? Here's the territory. Have at it. Well, it never happens and here's why.

Sovereign states. Never ever, never ever, never ever, never ever, never ever, never ever, never ever, never, never, never ever willingly give up territory. Ever! Not today's world. Now I know what a lot of you are thinking.

Oh, wait a minute. The Russians sold Alaskan territory to the United States. Oh, and the French? So the Louisiana purchased the United States.

They gave up territory Yeah, for a whole bunch of money and that was a couple hundred years ago. I'm suggesting in today's world does not happen. No sovereign state gives up territory without a tremendous fight or a whole lot of money one or the other and why is that? Well, because you never know.

You just never know. What do I mean by that? You never know what that little territory might be worth.

You never know what the strategic value of it might be on top or the resources that lie underneath. Let me give you a quick example. Let's create a territory that you would think nobody would want. Let's create an island off the coast of California.

Let's cover that island ten miles high with dog shit. Let's call it Dog Shit Island. Who would want Dog Shit Island?

Wouldn't the United States just give Dogshit Island away to anybody who would want it or let it become its own sovereign state if the residents of Dogshit Island wanted to become their own state? The United States never would do it. And in fact, if anybody even attempted to invade Dogshit Island, the Marines and the Army and Navy would be there to blow them out of the water to protect Dogshit Island. Why?

Because you never know. What if ten years from now a scientist invents a fuel that's 1,000 times better than gasoline? and it's made out of dog shit. Oh, that's why you never give up territory. And you can't predict future geopolitical situations either.

You never give up a territory that might... attack you later. They might get taken over by an enemy later.

They might have bombs pointed at you later. Sovereign states never ever in the modern era give up territory without a tremendous fight. Some of which we'll talk about during this semester. Okay, so if all those little dinky areas are trying to become a sovereign state, and I'm suggesting it's not gonna happen easily, how does one become a sovereign state? How does an entity become a sovereign state?

What does it take? And when I ask this question to Folks, students, parents, peoples of the world. I say, hey, what do you think it takes to have a state? Well, if you as a homework project had to go start a state, what do you got to have?

And people come up with lots of answers. Everybody's convinced. Here are the things you need for a state.

A lot of people would say you need territory. That's a good one, kind of do. You might need a government.

Oh, I mean you can't be a state without a government. And then you need a leader of that government, leader of the state. Maybe a constitution, some sort of document describing the state and how it's gonna run. Or an army, you know, and marines and the navy to protect the state. Or the police to enforce the laws of the state.

An economy, I mean you have to make money in order to have a state. You have to have an economy. Or you have to print money.

I mean you can't be a state unless you have your own money. Or oh, a flag! You should have a flag to be a state.

You have to have a symbol of the state. I come henceforth and plant my flag and this is my State. Ha!

Here's the real deal. You don't need any of that stuff to become a state. Any of it. Yeah, almost all the sovereign states of the planet have some of those elements. Some don't.

The only thing you really need to become a state, you could do this yourself if you can pull it off. The only thing you need is this magical little term I've been referring to this entire time called sovereignty. Ha ha ha! If you have sovereignty the rest of that stuff is details and sovereignty is so important and it's changing so fast in today's world it's deserving of an entire lecture on its own and we'll get to that next.

Transcript for:Understanding Sovereign and Nation-States

Transcript for:
Understanding Sovereign and Nation-States