Yes, it's a messy place they they selected for their "free state"...
You can't really occupy useful land without expecting quick and dire consequences.
But that's de jure. De facto, it's part of Croatia, and as a basic national security issue Croatia isn't interested in letting squatters have free reign on a parcel of land adjacent to their border.
I do know that parts of Swedish foreign aid is in the form of building public institutions, reforming tax collection, etc.
I think nowadays you can't properly set up a new state, period. It’s just impossible. Currently existing states would do anything to push you out (unless you maybe play along with their political games somehow – and even then you get maybe just a tiny bit of recognition).
However, they are implicitly reasserting that no, Liberland did not establish a country there, that Croatia doesn't consider this as a state, that there is no such thing as Liberland.
And perhaps they are intentionally making a point of it to demonstrate that yes, they can and will push it out if you make unwarranted claims of sovereignty without their consent - for example, prosecuting individuals for using fictitious passports, as according to Croatia Liberland and its passports are fictitious.
The key part of setting up a new state is an agreement with your neighbours that they acknowledge your sovereignty over certain borders (i.e. "play along with their political games"), which certainly is possible as there have been multiple new states set up during 21st century, but until that is achieved, you don't really have a state.
The reason “nobody wants it” is that it’s similar to the Bir Tawil triangle: accepting it as part of your country means abandoning your claim on the larger and more valuable area linked to it in dispute.
It does not mean a third party gets to come in and go “well if nobody wants it…” it’s still part of the contention.
that sounds to me exactly like a third party coming and going "well if nobody wants it..."
Of course, in reality it's always about whether or not you can defend your territory with military power. And it doesn't even need to be unclaimed.
> There are currently three territories sometimes claimed to be terra nullius: Bir Tawil (a strip of land between Egypt and Sudan), *four pockets of land near the Danube due to the Croatia–Serbia border dispute*, and parts of Antarctica, principally Marie Byrd Land.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_nullius
Next, someone says that wikipedia is not a credible source.
Here, Wikipedia is faithfully recording that some people make that claim. It’s not saying that there’s a consensus or endorsing any claim or its contrary.
If two heirs battle over shares and neither wants property A because it means giving up on the more valuable property B, property A is still part of the inheritance and you will get forcefully ejected if you declare that since nobody wants it property A is now yours.
You probably can, but just not where people want to. It all comes down to whether your country wins the military battles that inevitably take place, and one modern soldier can really do a lot these days. The US exists, for example, because the British absolutely bungled the response to the revolution. Nowadays, it would take a lot more incompetence from their end to lose territory; if the ground troops are all neutralized, just hit 'em with an ICBM or something. It's crazy the amount of resources you'd be up against.
People are trying to secede from countries that literally have nuclear weapons. Your 3D printed guns aren't going to win against that. But, if you're fighting the local warlord or whatever, you probably have a chance.
So it's not enough to have military power, you need also the political will to use it. I get the sense India exists because the British were fatigued after WWII. There just wasn't the will to try to hold on to something they didn't feel like they had the moral right to anymore.
If these people had a reasonable functional economy (somehow), plus enough military gear/people to make it too costly to try invading, then they'd probably be ignored if they didn't cause trouble.
That "enough military gear to make it too costly to try invading" is an absolutely key requirement though. In some ways similar to the China/Taiwan thing.
China could invade Taiwan (manpower wise, etc). Taiwan knows it though, so they've focused their defences on asymmetric warfare. "You might take us, but you'll bleed forever from the attempt" kind of thing.
At that point, it's basically academic whether the people running the place are ideologically committed libertarians or a heavily armed criminal gang.
Additionally, if you want to go up against an armed force, the Croatian defense forces are more capable than most.
That's nothing unusual though. Isn't every nation existing today the remains of a heavily armed gang of one sort or another?
> ... drug dealing, sex work, and unregulated immigration and unregulated manufacturing.
Those probably wouldn't qualify as "reasonable economy" though. Instead, those would lead to their neighbours being pressured to "do something" about them.
Alternatives though... yeah, good question. Maybe they could set up something online gambling wise, but it could run afoul of the same problem.
Maybe something high-tech instead, though the investment required up front would be... interesting to say the least. ;)
The area seems quite rural, is probably prone to flooding, and is reliant on Croatia for electricity and internet.
If not, they're likely just wasting their time and effort.
That aside, they'll need to be prepared to add other civilisation fundamentals as well. eg police, emergency services, medical facilities, etc.
Doing it properly though would probably take some decent up-front investment.
... unless it's insulin or other "cheap and easy to manufacture" type of generic.
No idea how expensive the needed quality control / testing / etc would be to set up though.
But you repeat yourself.
Sorry if any ideologically committed libertarians are reading this thread, but libertarianism is one of those things that theoretically works and practically fails every time. People consolidate power into governments because it is effective.
As part of the dispute, Croatia didn't claim it, and neither did Serbia.
But in the meanwhile, Serbia did control various other disputed areas. So it would make sense that in turn, Croatia did the same with 'Liberland'. There's no contradiction between [not claiming an area] but still [asserting some degree of control there].
'Liberland' people claimed homes demolished "without warning" etc, but then complain about having been harassed for years.
So, more likely there were previous warnings, legal procedings or whatever, Liberland ignored those because 'not in our country, doesn't apply', and at some point time is up.
Given its history, it's logical Croatia would be sensitive about border disputes. And then some 3rd party steps in, complicates things & proclaims a new country between your neighbour & yourself?
Can't have that! So this whole clearing operation would simply be "what a nuissance these people! Let's fix that" on Croatia's side. And in the process, assert some control over the area.
All in all it seems the Liberland folks are rather naive about land being abandoned, or how border disputes work. Possibly no-one would care if they'd just squatted there without proclaiming anything.
With either a large swath of population to break away, or with a large army to take over some other population’s land.
I mean even Joshue needed to kill all the Canaanites to get to Israel (it’s the point of Exodus that “your people will live in other people’s houses”).
I don’t think Jedlička is 21st century’s Alexander the Macedonian.
A lot of countries maintain small areas where they are more relaxed about these things than in the rest of the territory they de facto control. Sometimes these areas are states in a federal system (Delaware), other times they take the form of special economic zones (Cayman Islands) but in a few cases they form de jure sovereign nations.
I think the (more or less) hidden agenda of Liberland is to become the de jure sovereign, de facto tolerated, "special economic zone" of Croatia.
When they will have built a hotel, the casino is probably not far and like the other tax haven, money laundering, gambling areas of this world it will be tolerated because it is of mutual benefit to them and their host country.
If it pans out: new (de jure) sovereign nation, without a (significant) army.
Couldn't an existing state democratically decide to split into two?
South sudan and east timor would have a word.
Scotland had a chance, but the population democratically refused to take it.