Hi Steve,

Quote Originally Posted by SteveMetz View Post
I meant formal alliances with legal standing.
That just ties back to my comments about fairy tales . Okay, does a government contract have legal standing? Also, whose legal system? What do we mean by a "formal alliance"? Did the US have one with the FLNA in Angola? Does a state recognize a non-state faction as a state as the only way to justify the existence of an alliance (vide the PRC vs. Taiwan)?

Let me step back from these issues for a second and bring up the other end of the scale, to whit, trans-national organizations (TNO) - e.g. the UN, the WHO, the IMF, the WTO, the World Bank, etc. Technically these groups are not nation states, but at least one of them enjoys protections under the Vienna Protocols (the UN) which implies a recognition of some form of sovereignty. Many nation states have entered into what are certainly de facto if, in some cases, not de jure "alliances" with these organizations.

Another example of a TNO which is being treated as a de facto "state" is AQ; witness the current US declaration of a de facto war against AQ and he current questions / concerns over the exact status and rights of prisoners captured during this war (e.g. gitmo).

Are we talking about de facto reality or de jure illusions? I'm not asking this to be silly; the answer will have really serious implications on planning and the creation of strategies.

Marc