I figured it was best to leave the Croats (too much hassle, best left a rump state) and Bosnians be, tbh. In my heart I want big Yugoslavia, but Croats in particular are suspect
If the geopolitics for most of these states seem terrible- that’s the point lmao
The goal among various things, is to make western Europe never rise again as an imperialist bloc, with it being an eyesore on a map and its borders having some plausible logic (to keeping states from either imploding or reunifying… well, there are a lot of UN mandates)
Who says they have to be libertarian? It would be better yet to have them as UN mandates, but specifically “international cities” that can get flooded with immigrants from the global south.
Sadly, history has shown nowhere is far enough from the Angloids. But ideally, perhaps in this map’s universe England can lose its… particularly English characteristics.
I figure they’re small enough as-is… but more than that, specifically it’s the logic of passing little bits of Germany (or Croatia, as another example on the map) to get as many nations invested in stomping out German revanchism wherever it pops up.
Giving the region to the Netherlands also isn’t without cultural or historical precedent, which makes it better yet still.
FWIW it was totally meant to be a clusterfuck and a (partial) shitpost in the Balkans. Russia, Belarus, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, and even Moldova and Transnistria all took big happy bites out of Ukraine for instance. And Slovenia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Yugoslavia all took bites out of Croatia as well- and then there’s Hungary and Yugoslavia biting bits off of Romania…
The intent was always to create a EU/NATO screw, and to play different member states off each other, making a scenario where there could be nothing to be done for certain states, but stewing in bitter impotence.
Switzerland’s borders were unchanged, so I didn’t bother coloring it in or labeling it tbh (also, Galicia-Volhynia is only referring to the specific westernmost regions of Ukraine)
But that’s not what I want, nor what I’d find funny- it would be wholly counterproductive, as it would just leave Europe on equal footing with the rest of the world.
If anything, the next step I’d take would be creating more large federations and supranational unions, though sadly these wouldn’t be very realistic. A United Arab Republic stretching from Mauritania to Oman, the return of the Soviet Union, or Mexico’s historical borders, the East African Federation or some unions of the Congo/DRC, Burkina Faso/Mali/Niger, or Maphilindo… maybe even the dreams of pan-Africanism manifest as some “superstate Africa” or hell, some holy trinity of the Soviet Union reborn, China, and India all holding hands, singing “kumbayah,” and delivering a spanking for the Anglosphere.
If it made any sense whatsoever (sadly it doesn’t), I’d make a “Celtic union” featuring Ireland, Scotland, Wales, the Manx, Cornwall, Brittany, and Galicia as well- or I’d make a true Yugoslavia stretching from Slovenia to Bulgaria, or better yet a Balkan union like was historically proposed, with all the south Slavs, Romania, Hungary, Greece, and Albania- hell, bonus points for Cyprus and Turkey as well. Or I’d revive al-Andalus, but this time with all the other Maghreb states in a union. Or of course, the most ideal borders would simply be an entirely Soviet Europe.
The whole point is an (entirely and completely deserved, but also hypothetical shitpost of a) western Europe screw.
We do shit on libs for doing stuff like this- I shit on them specifically, myself.
Difference between libs’ maps and this though IMO is- for one, I think mine is hilarious, and had fun making it. But also, I’m not going about trying to fund or instigate separatists like this (though I won’t lie- if I had the means to both do so, and have no repercussions- I meet neither requirement- I totally would), and certainly not/never terrorists and extremists the likes of which the west always does.
Dunno to what extent it’s cringe in that context. Probably some, but I don’t have much or any personal investment in these maps. I’d love to see half of it IRL, but there’s no expectation unlike libs thinking they’re going to carve up China, Russia, or (insert country here) “when they collapse, any day now…”
…also- while the borders tend to have some minor ethnic or historical context (not always) more than anything else, it’s intended as a Euro-screw. And I’ll never back down from such Euro-screws; at least I’m honest in that regard. The borders are less about “promoting democracy and equality by having a shit-ton of ethno-statelets and separatists” and more “let’s screw England/France/Italy/west Germany to such an extent they will never wield the same influence again that they presently do.” Which if you ask me, for shitposting borders on a map- or even IRL to a considerable extent- can only be a good thing.
True. And I’m all down for that, too. Lancashire got independence as-is to have a nice little land bridge going straight from Cornwall, to Wales, up to Scotland without passing through England at any point of the journey.
Fair- I agree tbh. I’d say I was simply being lazy in that regard (mapchart, the site I was using, with the NUTS2 map didn’t go into detail about Ukraine, Russia, Belarus, and Norway among other countries, so rather than go through the hassle of, say, overlaying the map with borders in a different program and from there tracing out different regions I’d want to cut out- I just left them empty, minus the denazification/vague territorial change circles in Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania (all of which I’d have made far smaller) and western Ukraine.
The map was made with “drawing borders on the present (2023) world” in mind, admittedly. So I simply didn’t think to include them for similar reasons to why I didn’t include all of former Yugoslavia, or remade the Soviet Union… Egypt and the Gulf presumably would need a lot of time to settle into the idea (Jordan, Lebanon, and Kuwait would too, but it “works”)