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Is there a example of a modern city state being conquered? HK was returned to China at the end of a lease, Sevastopol wasn't a city state, Kuwait also not a cit
by nickdothutton 2y ago
Is there a example of a modern city state being conquered? HK was returned to China at the end of a lease, Sevastopol wasn't a city state, Kuwait also not a city state. I can't think of one.
- the_af 2y agoWhat would you consider a "modern city state" (in the same sense as Sparta of antiquity)? I don't think they actually exist anymore, in practice. Singapore maybe? I don't think they would survive on their own if a determined enemy launched an assault on them.
- nickdothutton 2y agoVatican, Monaco, Singapore, perhaps Dubai and San Marino depending on how tight a definition you wanted to make.
- the_af 2y agoSome of those don't even have an army, and they wouldn't be able to repel an enemy invasion. Singapore, maybe? But not without heavy assistance.
- nickdothutton 2y agoA standing army is not the only way to ensure continued existence. Republic of Ireland has something like 6000 troops, no Navy as such, I'm not sure they have any armed aircraft, and yet... there it is.
- the_af 2y agoBut the point stands, doesn't it? I wasn't talking about "continued existence" in general, but about defense against an invasion ("being conquered", I defaulted to "by military invasion"). The Republic of Ireland doesn't have an army that could defend it, it would have to rely on more powerful allies. (I'm discounting guerrilla resistance by civilians, etc). > Is there a example of a modern city state being conquered? I think there are no modern city states in the same sense that ancient Athens, Rome, Carthage, Sparta, or Renaissance Florence and Milan were.
- razakel 2y ago>I don't think they actually exist anymore, in practice. There's Andorra, Liechtenstein, Monaco, San Marino, and the Vatican. All are basically client states of their larger neighbour.
- the_af 2y agoBut some of those don't even have a standing army, and -- in my opinion -- are not equivalents to ancient Sparta... Like you say, these are client states of a larger and more powerful neighbor.
- ianburrell 2y agoDjibouti, Qatar, Bahrain.
- the_af 2y agoThose seem to be microstates, or small countries with the single dominant city along other cities, rather than city-states. I'm aware they are listed in Wikipedia as "can be considered" city-states, but I don't think that's in the sense we mean here. This matters because my main objection is that city-states in the same sense as Sparta, Athens, etc, no longer exist in the modern world, and as such, the question "is there a example of a modern city state being conquered?" is moot.
- mejutoco 2y agoGdansk (in the recent past) maybe?
- codingbot3000 2y agoKuwait is quite similar in its structure to the Greek city state, usually consisting of an urban core and its surroundings. Also Monaco and San Marino where occupied for some time during WW2. Not sure if they count as modern city states in your view ;-) City states just do not have enough strategic depth to be defensible in modern warfare. That being said, Singapore is a good example for a modern city state that maintains quite a strong deterrence against being conquered.
- ashoeafoot 2y agoThe line will be build the way it is designed, due to atomics in a unstable region making a line ideal to statistically "defend" against expected hostilities destroying traditional cities.
- kergonath 2y agoThere aren’t many examples of modern city states to begin with. San Marino and Monaco could disappear overnight and not many people would care. Hong Kong and Macau were tokens, pawns that changed hands in the colonial Great Game, but that never really controlled their destiny. Obvious exceptions are Vatican City and Singapore, which benefit from different kinds of safety. But there is no region that remains in the world like medieval Italy or the Holy Roman Empire, or classical Greece. All of them got swallowed.