[TeaBrain]

The examples you provided are misconstruing the comment you are responding to. As they said, if an unrecognized nation has a systems for functional "currencies, police, military, border security", although I'd also add independent taxation, then it is functionally a nation. This is not a random declaration of sovereignty or declaration of conquest over an area they are referring to, but a place that has all of the elements of a nation or independent state, but is simply not widely recognized.

A well-known example of this is Kosovo, which operates as a sovereign state, with its own police, military, taxation and secure borders with border security, but is only recognized by only a little over half of the UN. Another example is Taiwan, which has its own currency, independent taxation system, passport, military, police and representative governance, despite not being officially recognized by many member states of the UN. Israel is an example of a nation which was not recognized by any of its neighbors, despite being in control of its territory, but ended up being recognized around the world all the same.

[Dylan16807]

Those are very very far from "unrecognized".

[TeaBrain]

A country being diplomatically unrecognized, which is what was being referred to, does not mean that it is unknown or obscure. Both Kosovo and Taiwan are not obscure, but are still widely unrecognized.

[Dylan16807]

The thread started on countries so desperate for a scrap of recognition that a single letter is extremely important.

When you point out countries that are only officially recognized by half the countries on the planet, that's not in the same ballpark. Those countries have widespread but not universal recognition.

For a proper example of an "unrecognized" country... I'd say for sure there should be less than 10 UN members that recognize it, and even that is an intentionally loose bound.