[quote=Enalais]
Is Israel taken?
[/quote]

Nope. Might want to get with Evan though. I'll alert him though.

[quote=So Boerd]
Not like the unification of Germany in the face of France or unification of Italy in the face of Austria, or Cyprus attempting to join Greece in the face of Turkey or the slavic states into Yugoslavia right?I get that you were pissed people were doing this to ridiculous extremes, but really, it isn't that unreasonable that Norway, Denmark and Sweden might team up, or the baltics with each other.
[/quote]

It's never been a means to give up one nation's sovereignty. National protection would imply that they - as a nation and political institution - would be protected by another. It would not be the over-riding of one local institution by another to accept another's laws and constitution. Similar conditions have arisen throughout history but they have never been the reason to facilitate annexation. At the greatest extent they may be a multilateral organization where each nation is independent akin to organizations like the Central American Parliament, though that group came to existence as a reaction to the Central American civil wars in the 80's in an attempt to resolve these wars, and later evolved into a cross-national forum to preserve Democratic systems. It's not an absolute annexation in any of the nations that could in any effort in the near, foreseeable future facilitate the return of the very short-lived [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Republic_of_Central_America]FRCA[/url].

Militarily, NATO is the biggest example of nations partaking in a multi-national military alliance in reaction to a common national threat. Organizations like that, or the smaller [url=https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scandinavian_defence_union]Scandinavian Defence Union[/url] which are organizations which allow functioning coordination between national armies to a degree that may almost be regarded as a unified national military in its operations. However, still respecting the political, national, and military independence of the member states.

Annexation in a diplomatic sense comes around only as part of a slower dialog on more subtle fields. They don't arise, or would be forced into happening, based on "fear" of an opposing nation-state. You may have conditions like strong economic partnership which over time and a number of trade treaties would sync either nation into being in tune to the other nation's economy, allowing for such a level of economic equality that functionally they are the same. Combined with cross-border social integration to the point that those nations are almost culturally indistinguishable. This is not an instant process and likely would not transpire in the given time-frame unless it's already ongoing.

In the end, race and culture will always boil into it. Canada and the US may erase their national borders to become one given the high-level of shared culture and our extremely close economy. A Canadian and an American are almost indistinguishable from each other in mannerism and taste; the only difference is Canadian opinion of America which is not nearly as high as American favor of Canada (which is somewhere close to 80-90% where as Canada is maybe around 50-60). The Balkans will probably never unionize unless by force given just how high tensions are between everyone and how high they've been (and given everyone speaks a different South Slavic language). Scandinavia will probably not unionize as it was in the 19th century because of the same reason, and because Norway broke off of Sweden by force of arms.

And finally: Nationalism never works on the basis of what's actually statistically beneficial for a population. You may have a strong government and the national economy is good and you have good mobility. But somewhere there is going to be a cultural or ethnic group that may still have qualms with the way politics are lead, and they will have a history they can fall upon to lament over no longer having. You simply can't achieve unity without first shooting a few non-Kebabs. Or Kebabs.

German unification was also something that has been sung for a long-ass time, and was inspired by the nationalist movement in France. The effect only managed to make face when Bismarck went in with Conservative Nationalism and not the French Liberal Nationalism to unite Germany in the traditional frame that respected its heritage, as is Conservative values. Italy was also a long-fought over unification dream in the same vein as Germany: merely unifying the lingual sphere of Italian into a solid and founded nation after centuries of city-states. Yugoslavia was an effect of the Serbian Government in exile pushing the Corfu Decleration at Versaille, which was as good excuse as any for the Allied powers to chop up Austria. Yugoslavia wasn't made as an effect of Serbia getting Croatia and company together: they were in Austrian control at the time, and Serbia itself was dominated by Austria during the First World War when the Corfu Decleration was made.

And Nationalism is a very strong voice in national politics. Even in this child-immigrant case here in the US you hear a lot of people bitching and biting at the bit about "protecting America's current borders". That's because Latinos are not "Americans" as we in the US consider an "American" being. And therefore, they're not part of the American identity and shouldn't be included in it. It may sound racist, but it is the dialog that exists and has been since the French Revolution. Expansion of the borders is most often made in the name of promoting a cultural idea over another by force, and bringing it to that area. "White Man's Burden" in civilizing Africa comes to mind: attempting to promote European ideals (as well as expanding European markets) over an "under developed" people.