Unbounded expansion arose inside boundary-defined nation-states

Evidence

That a movement of expansion for expansion’s sake grew up in nation-states which more than any other political bodies were defined by boundaries and the limitations of possible conquest, is one example of the seemingly absurd disparities between cause and effect which have become the hallmark of modern history. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 358

Categorization

• QUESTION: What drives the disparity between bordered nation-state form and unbounded expansionist impulse?
• XREF: connects to: Exclusive territorial national jurisdictions are a recent twentieth-century invention — Charles Tilly, Regimes and Repertoires, 191