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Comment by notpushkin | Hacker News Reader

I'm pretty sure Liberland's case classifies as “no man’s land” (neither of the bordering countries wanted it, and nobody else bothered with it, too). Still, once Liberland established a country there, suddenly everybody wants it.

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).

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It's not that "suddenly everybody wants it" - there literally haven't been any changes to Croatia (or Serbia) policy regarding the border.

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.

> I'm pretty sure Liberland's case classifies as “no man’s land” (neither of the bordering countries wanted it, and nobody else bothered with it, too). Still, once Liberland established a country there, suddenly everybody wants it.

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.

> Wikipedia: In international law, terra nullius is territory which belongs to no state. Sovereignty over territory which is terra nullius can be acquired by any state by occupation.

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.

That's just something someone wrote on Wikipedia. Do you think that if the liberland people showed the Wikipedia page to the police, they would have backed off? The only logical conclusion here is simply that the Wikipedia article is wrong.

Right, but this is disputed land, not unclaimed land.

I expected this comment. The same wikipedia page also says:

> 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.

> sometimes claimed

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.

The link quite clearly states the land is under dispute. While the two countries may disagree which of them owns it, they quite clearly agree nobody else does. I'm not an expert in international law, but I'm quite confident you would be laughed out of the room trying to claim ownership of the land in an international court.

I'm not trying to become an international lawyer. The thread mentioned terra nullius, so I'm just pointing out what that definition says and what are the real-world examples, where these lands are clearly mentioned. Not sure why somebody gets so triggered by it. Let me point out that these two countries don't just "disagree which one of them owns it", they both say "we don't own it", which makes all the difference. Maybe someone with more knowledge can explain whether Croatia's constitution can say "this land belongs to Serbia", I personally don't see how that would be possible.

Well, yeah, this is how it works now. It's still bullshit though.

It’s how it works always.

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.

> I think nowadays you can't properly set up a new state, period.

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.

You could secede from a nuclear power. Most sane people tend to not want to use them in/near their territory.

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.

That's a very good example. In my mind I was thinking about the Falklands ("the empire strikes back" magazine cover floats ominously), but yeah. Britain could have nuked India if they wanted to. Civil wars are weird.

You can, but you'll have to budget for a sizeable army if you want to keep it.

Eh, Costa Rica does fine with no military. Eventually when Serbia calms down and joins the EU, there will effectively be no need for a standing army (like other European microstates)

Try taking some land in Latin America without an army to back it up and we'll see how you do. Costa Rica does just as well as Monaco without an army.

Probably, yeah. And sizable in this case means that you not only need to be larger than Serbian and Croatian armies, but perhaps all of NATO as well.

Nah.

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.

Actually yeah, it makes sense, thanks. Still pretty hard though!

Realistically, the only way to grow an economy in that area is via drug dealing, sex work, and unregulated immigration and unregulated manufacturing.

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.

> heavily armed criminal gang.

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. ;)

Online gambling is legal in most of the EU. It’s better to set something like that up in Malta, which has the infrastructure.

The area seems quite rural, is probably prone to flooding, and is reliant on Croatia for electricity and internet.

Electricity could be the main problem. Starlink would probably be a practical internet provider though, rather than needing to go through a neighbouring country directly.

Indeed, TFA includes a Starlink antenna in the list of items either destroyed or removed.

I think current course is to let IT companies set up presence in Liberland (for low taxes / less bureaucracy). I'm not sure how viable is that, given other governments are unlikely to recognize Liberland-registered legal entities at this point, thus disabling them from doing any actual business. (I might open one though sometime later, just as a novelty thing – for now :-)

Reckon it'll generate enough revenue for a practical military force?

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.

Hmmm, maybe manufacturing of generic drugs (in a non-dodgy way) would be an option?

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.

>ideologically committed libertarians or a heavily armed criminal gang.

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.

It's probably more subtle than that:

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.

you can set up a new state the way it always worked.

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.

Countries have to be strict on things that are detrimental to their existence. First and foremost they have to be stringent on taxes, but also on money laundering, gambling and sometimes ideology.

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.

Becoming de jure sovereign requires getting de jure recognition of others (even if you don't control the land de facto). It doesn't look like Croatia has even the slightest intent to recognize Liberland de jure, so whatever their agenda is, they aren't on their way to get there.

> I think nowadays you can't properly set up a new state, period.

Couldn't an existing state democratically decide to split into two?

For example, Czechia and Slovakia.

It’s also possible for a state to implode and multiple successors to arise eventually.

> I think nowadays you can't properly set up a new state

South sudan and east timor would have a word.

> I think nowadays you can't properly set up a new state, period. It’s just impossible.

Scotland had a chance, but the population democratically refused to take it.

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