在国际社会上小国能够和大国一样维持其独立性,其生存战略在于小国能够减少自己与较大国家之间在资源上而不是在人口规模上的差异,在这些资源上,它甚至可以超过那些人口众多的国家;小国可以提高大国反对小国目标的机会成本。一个国家生存的机会主要不依赖于它的规模。通过人均防卫开支,能测量出小国比大国拥有较低的生存成本。小国的独立和自治受到威胁的一个重要原因就是它经济上的依赖性,结果就是小国高度依赖于外国政治角色的行为而不是服从于自己的权威,可供选择的战略是:通过单方面的调整来适应国外政治角色的行为;通过小国之间的协商和交易进行相互调整;通过与其他体系的协商,小的体系可以成功地建立一个包含相关角色者的具有足够大的边界的更高权威。在大国,对于受到统一法令的不利影响的公民来说,可供选择的战略则有:通过接受损失或找到避免损失的办法来进行单方面的调整;通过协商和交易进行相互调整;通过行政上或法律上的自治,建立一个具有很小边界的下属权;在极端的情况下,分裂成一个独立的主权体系。不同的问题需要不同规模的政治单位。不存在一个最优规模的政治单位,每一个现代国家在实践中都必须认识到这样一件事实:无论何时只要存在边界太大或太小的问题,它就要通过采纳一个或多个战略,来满足政治单位规模变化的需要。人们现在和未来将生活在多样性的政治单位之中。 In the international community, small countries can maintain their independence like big powers, and their survival strategy is that small countries can reduce the difference in their resources rather than the population size between themselves and larger countries. On these resources, it can even surpass those A country with a large population; a small country can raise the opportunity cost of a large country against small ones. The chances of survival of a country are largely independent of its size. Per capita defense spending can measure the small subsistence costs of small countries over large ones. An important reason why small states are threatened by their independence and autonomy is that they are economically dependent. As a result, small states are highly dependent on foreign political roles rather than subordinated to their own authority. The alternative strategy is: through unilateral adjustments To adapt to foreign political roles; to reconcile each other through negotiations and transactions among small States; and through consultation with other systems, small systems can successfully establish a higher authority with a sufficiently large frontier that includes relevant actors. In large countries, for citizens who are adversely affected by the Uniform Act, alternative strategies include unilateral adjustment by accepting loss or finding ways to avoid loss; mutual adjustment through negotiation and transactions; Or legal autonomy, to establish a subordinate power with a small boundary; in the extreme case, to split into an independent sovereignty system. Different issues require political units of different sizes. There is no political unit of the optimum size, and every modern country must recognize in practice that the fact is that whenever there is a problem of too large or too small a border, it must adopt one or more strategies , To meet the needs of the political unit changes in size. People now and in the future will live in a diversity of political units.