I like the idea of decentralization amongst nations and want all countries to be as autonomous as possible; however, let’s say that we enter interstellar space and we discover there are hundreds of alien civilizations.
Well, I don’t know about you but *someone* on Earth needs to be in charge and it sure as hell isn’t going to be a planet full-on individualism!
In order to present a respectable image in the galactic playing field, we would need to represent our planet and our species, not our particular island.