The problem with this theory is that non-state organizations that did that, existed for a while, but were defeated in combat, or by threat of combat (ie: the th

The problem with this theory is that non-state organizations that did that, existed for a while, but were defeated in combat, or by threat of combat (ie: the threat of combat made them change to mount a defense) by states. For example: During early Roman Empire era, they had a few rivals that were states themselves, and they dedicated most of the resources defending against them, but there was lots of wars and skirmishes with "barbarians", many that were considered a nation in the ethnic sense (Germania, Alemannia, Lusitania, etc...) but weren't states, they were bigger than dunbar number but their coordination in the nation sense, were more of a league of settlements and warbands, not an organized state, they had many things modern states do, like ways to provide for the old, law enforcement and so on, but had no central command for the army. Many of these people were just crushed by states that did exist, often outright genocided (for example the Helvetii), the ones that survived (for example the precursors of modern Germany and France) eventaully became states themselves to be able to defend themselves. The major exception was peoples living in places where agriculture is not possible, seemly agriculture is a sort of requeriment for a state to exist, so in the eurasian steppe/desert, african desert and so on, some non-state nations survived for a long time (for example Mongolia, although now they are a state too, still, they moved their capital to a place where agriculture is possible). Seemly the "weirdest" states now in some senses, are the states that became possible because of our current oil-based economy, states that became fully sedentary despite not having enough food, because they export oil and buy food or irrigation equipment/water (for example UAE)