BOOKS
OU ARE, I am confident in
declaring, reading this within
the boundaries of a nation.
Virtually every square inch of
land on the planet (with the
partial exception of Antarc-
tica) has been assigned to one
polity or another—as have the
world’s people. We are all citi-
zens of a country. That is the
easily digested story we have been told since childhood.
Almost as easy to understand is the answer to the question,
“What if you don’t like the country you’re in?” You can leave it
for another country, or you can make a new one. The history
of the last century is rife with examples of peoples creating
new states: There’s Yugoslavia. There’s the cluster of countries
where Yugoslavia used to be. If the map doesn’t suit you, then
draw a new line on it.
In Invisible Countries: Journeys to the Edge of Nationhood,
Joshua Keating looks closely at this simple story—and shows
not only that the accepted narrative does not capture the
true shape of the world but that the consensus underneath
that narrative is eroding. A brief and historically anomalous
period of stable international borders is coming to an end.
KEATING, FORMERLY OF Foreign Policy and now of Slate, begins
by exploring the emergence of the modern nation-state. He
moves from the Treaty of Westphalia, which undergirds
much of modern international law, to the U.S. Declaration of
Independence and then onward to colonialism, Wilsonian
self-determination, the Cold War, and our current era. This
opening flirts with some fascinating questions, but cramming
such a huge swath of political history into 40 pages doesn’t
leave room for thorough answers. Keating arrives too abruptly
at Westphalia, and he limits himself to Europe. He doesn’t
give 19th century nationalism room to breathe. He notes the
stability of the Cold War era without discussing the period’s
nuclear stalemate or the growth of international trade and
soft power.
Having briskly set the stage, the author brings out a parade
of curiosities. First are the Knights of Malta, a relic of the
medieval era that maintains the trappings of sovereignty
(strained even further since Pope Francis has imposed his
authority on the order) without any territory except a couple
of embassies. He visits Akwesasne, a Mohawk community
that spans the U.S.-Canada border and tries to balance the
authority of both states with its own. He muses on the case of
Somaliland, a poor but stable country attempting to secede
from Somalia against the wishes of the world community,
which fears a repeat of the disaster in South Sudan. He regis-
ters as an “electronic resident” of Estonia. He meets with the
self-proclaimed president of Liberland, a small parcel of land
on the Serbia-Croatia border that neither state claims and that
Liberland’s libertarian founder therefore asserts is terra nul-
lius and subject to his territorial control.
These examples are exceptions that prove the rule. The
Westphalian system has withstood much stronger threats,
and the book begins picking up its pace as it moves toward
a crisis that might equal the greatest challenges the nation-
state has faced.
The strongest sections of Keating’s tour come as he slows
down to examine larger questions. He’s on familiar ground
talking about Kurdistan, the prototypical “nation without a
state,” and it shows. He walks deftly through the confusing
web of conflicting loyalties and authorities in the Kurdish
parts of Iraq and Syria. He looks at the interests of the major
players in the region, and at their attempts to deny or encour-
age Kurdish aspirations. Arab refugees from the war against
ISIS have swelled the populations of Iraqi Kurdistan and Syr-
ian Rojava, even as the Kurds in those two places have vastly
expanded the size of the territories they hold.
A fascinating aside on the stateless people of the world ulti-
mately leaves the reader asking questions. Keating introduces
individuals without nations, such as those born in the Soviet
Union who never applied for citizenship in one of its successor
states. What about the growing global refugee population—is
a Kurd fleeing Syria still a Syrian? What about her child, born
in Greece? The book, which includes some events from 2017,
does not mention the Rohingya crisis on the Bangladesh-
Burma border, which dramatically highlights this problem.
Keating also glosses over Palestine, the world’s most promi-
nent nation without a state.
As flaws go, there are worse ones than raising interest-
ing questions that aren’t fully answered, but this happens64 OCTOBER 2018
People Without Nations,
Nations Without People
The future of the Westphalian system is full of unanswered questions.
JAMES ERWIN