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They said a military was necessary to defend the claim, not to assert sovereignty over the claimed territory. It's neither.

• stcredzero 7y ago
  They said a military was necessary to defend the claim, not to assert sovereignty over the claimed territory. Successfully asserting sovereignty over the claimed territory is defending the claim, plus getting other sovereign nations to acknowledge you. So long as you can get other powers to acknowledge you and successfully defend your claim, you can assert sovereignty. And yes, it counts if other sovereign nations just don't want to be bothered to prove you can't assert sovereignty. (Or if you bribe or flatter them somehow.) It counts if you can "win by default." Ever wonder why geopolitics seems like high school politics? It's because it's basically might makes right combined with human dominance instincts. At root, it's "bigger army diplomacy." Or as Mao put it, "All power comes out of the end of a gun."