Devolution is even happening in China. Cities have been given a long leash to develop innovative economic models, and Beijing depends on their growth. One of the most popular adages among China watchers today is: “The hills are high, and the emperor is far away.” Our maps show a world of about 200 countries, but the number of effective authorities is hundreds more.

The broader consequence of these phenomena is that we should think beyond clearly defined nations and “nation building” toward integrating a rapidly urbanizing world population directly into regional and international markets. That, rather than going through the mediating level of central governments, is the surest path to improving access to basic goods and services, reducing poverty, stimulating growth and raising the overall quality of life.

Connected societies are better off than isolated ones. As the incidence of international conflict diminishes, ever more countries are building roads, railways, pipelines, bridges and Internet cables across borders, forging networks of urban centers that depend on one another for trade, investment and job creation.

Burundi, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda have formed the East African Community to coordinate everything from customs to investment promotion to peacekeeping. If they can leverage Chinese-built infrastructure to overcome arbitrary political borders, (the ubiquitous and suspicious straight lines on the map), they could become a nascent European Union for Africa.

Nowhere is a rethinking of “the state” more necessary than in the Middle East. There is a sad futility to the reams of daily analysis on Syria and Iraq that fail to grasp that no state has a divine right to exist. A century after British and French diplomats divided the Ottoman Empire’s eastern territories into feeble (and ultimately short-lived) mandates, the resulting states are crumbling beyond repair.

The Arab world will not be resurrected to its old glory until its map is redrawn to resemble a collection of autonomous national oases linked by Silk Roads of commerce. Ethnic, linguistic and sectarian communities may continue to press for independence, and no doubt the Palestinians and Kurds deserve it. And yet more fragmentation and division, even new sovereign states, are a crucial step in a longer process toward building transnational stability among neighbors.

Even as there is a growing number of micro-states and para-states, one ancient state form remains with us more prominently than ever: empire. Twenty years ago the political scientist Samuel P. Huntington published his landmark essay “The Clash of Civilizations.” The word “empire” appeared just twice — only as a modifier, never a noun. Yet deeply diverse empires, not culturally defined civilizations, have always been the driving force of geopolitics.