[quote]The political climate isn't the same though. These micro-democracies would have access to modern technology and education, and relations with each other in a way similar to the UN. Conquest doesn't happen today because conquest is expensive and generally looked down upon by people, especially toward democracies.[/quote]

1. Say conquest is dead to Putin in Ukraine and China in the Senkaku and Spratlys.
2. Conquest is expensive only when the others resist. How much would the little cities of Alaska be able to resist a Russian invasion, when all of Ukraine can not? And in light of Russia and China, the country would reform into the US rather than be conquered