Like, let's say Jeff Bezos wants to be god king of his own country. Could he just buy an aircraft carrier and roll up to some low population island?

I don't mean a microstate either. I'm talking something at least the size of Vatican City, with de facto if not de jure international recognition.

>>63832882 (OP)
outside intervention would kick in if any names were dropped and confirmed

all billionaires hold their own country as a flag and anything they do will be seen as aggression of their country by other countries even if it isn't true, it's too juicy of a theme to raise and have an excuse to "intervene" and take everything for themselves

>>63832882 (OP)
i'm the head of bezos military force and we just established our own country. what keeps me from killing him and taking over?

>>63832882 (OP)
>Could a rich enough man feasibly conquer their own country?
personally I am looking into colonizing Jupiter and its moons and claiming them for my own

>>63832882 (OP)
pretty much this
>>63832899

the only way a billionaire could achieve victory and get his own country would be doing the following :
>initiate tension within the country
>sell the "solution" to the gov't
>buy out so much of their private assets that everything become yours
>get someone with good reputation in your pockets and put him in place for the next presidential vote
>once he is make sure all opposition is controlled opposition also working for you
>you basically now control the entire country just by using money

in case the country doesn't have election, you can still generate enough tensions to cause a civil war/military overthrow and still achieve the same result without using guns or having an army

>ai slop
>retarded question

>>63832907
Same reason why any dictatorship doesn't immediately get coup'd. You need tacit approval from other countries/powers that be to do this, which requires a certain level of power/influence.
In other words, without Bezos you get liberated by the US military in like 2 days.

Plus you would probably never have direct contact with Bezos in the first place.

>>63832882 (OP)
Even fucking Somalia has a GDP 10 billion US$ and a military budget of 200 million US$ per year.
Funding a 3rd-world military out of pocket would ruin strain even a billionaire's finances in a few years.
So the real question is how to make it profitable even when you're facing insurgents. Better go after some resource-rich country that for whatever reason currently isn't being exploited.

>>63832882 (OP)
Theoretically, yeah sure. There is no rules in politics except the laws of physics, anything you think of as a rule is a mere convention that applies generally but can be transgressed if you're determined enough and have the resources.
In practice, though? Without the backing of an existing state or a few, there is no chance in hell. The scale is not really there. Not even Bezos, not even if he managed to immediately liquidate his entire net worth into cash, could acquire and operate enough power to strong-arm existing states into accepting them as a legitimate player. With the backing of an existing state? Yeah sure, but at that point you're not a billionaire that just went and seized stuff, you're at best a puppet dictator, and while you definitely have some wiggle room there ultimately is a puppeteer that you're beholden to.

>>63832882 (OP)
Coups/revolutions are really determined by what the military does, and generally they fall in to four options
1. Full military support, guaranteed coup success
2. Partial military support, partial military resistance, civil war
3. Military resistance, coup fails
4. Military sits it out, possible coup success, requires some popular support or population apathy
Most revolutions fail, it's only the successful ones that are remembered. But for every successful revolution there are hundreds of failures.

>>63832882 (OP)
>image
from afar this is supposed to be bush in sarasota right? it's subtle but I can see it

>>63833148
Amazon has a revenue of like $650 billion. Bezos has a personal $500 mil yacht that costs like $50 mil a year to run.

Anyways, once you take over a country you could then collect taxes as usual.

>>63832882 (OP)
Yes they could, they'd hire mercenaries. Powerful men and families basically did just this back in the day.

>>63832907
Because his management of his business is what brings more wealth to the country. If you're all alone on an island you're not getting shit in, you'll starve.

>>63832882 (OP)
The answer would be corporate neocolonialism, or to put it in English, banana republic. Taking a nation through military force is way too expensive and bad PR regardless of who you do it to

>>63832882 (OP)
Read The Dogs of War. tl;dr: You want to cut off the head of the snake, not try a wholesale invasion.

>>63835141