In a sense this their continued existence is a testament to the post UN conquest-is-illegal world order. It's not as clean as that (the US has a substantial mil

In a sense this their continued existence is a testament to the post UN conquest-is-illegal world order. It's not as clean as that (the US has a substantial military presence in Bahrain, for example), but still.It would be hard to imagine such weak, rich, independent patches of land remaining that way for long in any other period. For now though they seem to be comfortably clustered. Out of all these mini states though, only Kuwait borders a poorer more powerful state (it was invaded in the 90s and was repelled by the US/UN).