The most common failure mode is when governments don’t listen to the legitimate concerns of other groups, cherrypick the attacks made by a small minority, carry

The most common failure mode is when governments don’t listen to the legitimate concerns of other groups, cherrypick the attacks made by a small minority, carry out reprisals to “deter aggression” and start to dehumanize the other population by claiming they are inherently fascist or dumb or bloodthirsty. Then their mass media selects only the things that reinforce “other group does bad things, our group simply makes some mistakes but has great intentions” and “other side must be defeated 100% or it will come back and can’t be trusted to uphold a deal”. Example: When both Ukraine and Russia were in one federation called USSR (similar to USA, Yugoslavia or EU) then Crimea or some cities moving from Russia to Ukraine would have been regarded as an administrative change, requiring various adjustments to signs and flags. No one would even think of killing each other over which republic’s flag would fly over what territory, let alone escalating to a nuclear war that threatens to destroy human life on the planet. Think about how insane that is. In a libertarian world, cities would simply vote for a free market of competing agencies providing police, road maintenance, etc. And the whole package of “services” from a state would be unbundled and not worth fighting over. The concept of “territorial integrity of a country” or “national armies” would not be something that would even matter. The people of Hong Kong or Catalonia or Kurdistan or Bangladesh would be pretty happy and not have to fight for their “independence”. Countries shouldn’t own people. People should self-organize to get their needs met in peaceful arrangements and that’s all.