How The Trouble Began

It has become abundantly clear to me that the viability of the nation-state depends on attaining a size sufficient to maintain internal markets and deal with the world economy. This, of course, is exactly the opposite of our advice for foreigners, which since the Treaty of Versailles has been for them to fragment into ever-smaller statelets.

With this clue in hand you may now return to your regularly scheduled stately appreciation of history or anguished assessment of world events.