Republic of Ireland. Never invaded a foreign country’s soil, formed literally to get rid of imperial rule.
Estonia works too.
Liechtenstein or Andorra perhaps. Bit too small for “empire”. Or Kosovo, given that they haven’t been independent for that long.
I don’t think Korea has ever been imperial, they’ve always been too busy not being conquered
Korea had the longest unbroken chain of slavery of any society in human history, spanning over 1500 years.
How does slavery make a nation an empire?
In spirit I suppose. But they have been an empire for a while: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Korean_Empire
Not really sure that 13 years with no imperial ambitions counts as an empire. Unless the words are all that counts, I’m which case the US isn’t an empire
Are you trying to No True Scotsman the Korean Empire? They’re on the list! They even lasted longer (by 1 year) than Nazi Germany did as an empire!
Anyway I’d encourage you to look at the list. There have been many empires in history. You don’t have to be one of the “great empires” (such as the Kushite Empire) to be on the list.
I’d instinctively put Vietnam in that same bag.
I did think about Vietnam, but I think they were pretty aggressive towards Cambodia during and after their war of independence. I’m also not sure how much you want to include the Dai Viet as part of the current state or where you would rate it’s imperial-ness
Unified by war I don’t know if you’d find one, but even just “no genocide” you’ll only find a few. I was shocked with the Wikipedia page about genocide seeing how many countries had done it, or are doing it.
Yeah. Its pretty much constant throughout history. I have hope that can change, but it’s absolutely ongoing and we’ve got a ways to go.
Had a lady ask the room if anyone felt guilty after a Texas history discussion.
Reminds me of this meme.
In literally everyone’s history you’ll find groups taking advantage of lesser thans for personal gain. We didn’t load the cannon or sharpen the spears. We can learn, acknowledge and progress (ideally)
Guilt as an emotion doesn’t do anything for you. Use it for something at least… like kidnapping people and requesting extradition to fantasy land. Lol
I had somebody trying to tell me Bhutan was the perfect communism a couple of weeks ago.
It’s a monarchy where everybody lives like medieval peasants so that the rich and powerful can run the world’s most exclusive resort off their labor.
Wild guess. A tankie.
Nope, just crossed wires :)
I was just thinking about a conversation I had with someone here a while ago who asked whether there was a country which doesn’t prioritize GDP, then seemed to be annoyed that Bhutan, the country I found fitting that description, wasn’t rich (though iirc, conditions have improved since they stopped prioritizing GDP).
I’m not trying to start drama, I’m not invested, but I am autistic and this explains why the conversation wasn’t successful, so thanks 😊
South Sudan? New country must be so much better than the imperialist countries with a history
Sentinel Island
Most counties which formed by separating from an empire.
I mean, I guess you’d need to narrow the definition a bit.
I was thinking of a lot of former colonialised nations, but lots of those also have history of conquest before they became colonised.
Then Finland? Well, by our actions, pretty much. But O can’t say that it was because people didn’t want to.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greater_Finland
Perhaps “proto-imperialist” would be better suited to describe that. Well, irredentist, officially. (Rather rare, didn’t know that word.)
Bit of a problem there, yeah. This hostage taker needs to define both “imperialist” and “country”, or I’m shoving his ass into 2006-founded Montenegro and accepting zero complaints about it.
It’s a fool’s errand. What you really want is a country with a strong social safety net and vivid regrets about their recent imperialism.
A bunch of the younger nations probably qualify. Both Norway and Malaysia might, depending on your criteria for imperialism.
Slovenija
