This threat is still relevant, as many nations have not yet reached the economic or mental stage when they are no longer interested in territorial conquests.
If your political system requires no one in the world to defect, your political system is unworkable.
Naturally, political systems which require no one to defect are unworkable. But what makes you think that defection is an insolvable problem in this particular system? Just like individual people can act jointly against aggressive criminals, individual states/provinces/communities can act jointly against aggressive regimes.
My point is that you can’t simply rely on other countries having reached a “sufficiently advanced economic or mental stage” to stop defection. You do actually need to rely on force.
Sorry it was not sufficiently clear, but this is precisely the point I was trying to make in that paragraph. The real question was not whether the deterring force would be needed (obviously it would), but how to organize it effectively. In particular, how to solve the free rider problem which is intrinsic to all military coalitions?
If your political system requires no one in the world to defect, your political system is unworkable.
Naturally, political systems which require no one to defect are unworkable. But what makes you think that defection is an insolvable problem in this particular system? Just like individual people can act jointly against aggressive criminals, individual states/provinces/communities can act jointly against aggressive regimes.
My point is that you can’t simply rely on other countries having reached a “sufficiently advanced economic or mental stage” to stop defection. You do actually need to rely on force.
Sorry it was not sufficiently clear, but this is precisely the point I was trying to make in that paragraph. The real question was not whether the deterring force would be needed (obviously it would), but how to organize it effectively. In particular, how to solve the free rider problem which is intrinsic to all military coalitions?