Why were some nations like San Marino, the Vatican, Lesotho, etc. allowed to originally exist entirely inside their larger neighbor’s borders?
I can understand their continued existance since absorbing them now might lead to condemnation by the international community but why didn’t Italy, for example, just conquer the two nations within its borders in the first place?
Similarly why do some nations allow enclaves of outside nations to exist inside their borders? Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan being a prime example.
IANA historian, but at least in the case of the Vatican, the problem was power. The Vatican had long been one of the richest and most powerful “States” in the world - fuck with them at your peril. At the reunification of Italy, I suppose they reckoned they could do without the headache of trying to convince Boniface III or whoever to join them…
For some of the others (just guessing here) I suppose they were protectorates of larger states, and annexing them might have caused war…
Large parts of central Italy had been under control of the Popes since the early middle ages. Italy did not become a unified nation until the 1860s - before that, it was a bunch of sovereign principalities, republics, kingdoms, and whatever, that shared a common language and culture but did not form a state.
When Italy was unified under King Victor Immanuel in the 1860s, it actually did fight the Popes. For a few yars, they were able to remain independent with help from French troops, but during the 1870/71 war with Germany, France discontinued that support, and Rome was annexed by Italy in 1871, being declared capital of Italy. Consequently, the Popes considered themselves prisoners.
In 1929, Mussolini wanted to improve relations between Italy and the Popes, and they signed the Lateran Treaties that declared the 0.44 km² of the Vatican City a sovereign nation governed by the Pope.
Lesotho exists because unlike the surrounding area which became independent in the late 19th century, it was a British colony until 1966. South Africa was actively involved in Lesotho following Lesotho’s independence, and may have been responsible for a coup in 1986. The South African government also attempted to blockade Lesotho from 1983, but stopped short of invasion. Possibly it did not want to risk international condemnation, or possibly it did not want any more angry blacks in its territory.
I don’t know of any reason why San Marino remained independent. It is a left-over from when Italy was composed of city states, and is difficult to invade because of its high location. So maybe nobody bothered when it declined to join the unified Italy.
The OP isn’t really asking about enclaves – a part of one country surrounded by another – but rather small independent nations.
Places like Monaco, San Marino, Andorra, and Leichtenstein are remnants of old Europe, where nations didn’t really exist and the map was filled with duchies, principalities, and other very small areas ruled over by a minor nobleman. As time went on, these vanished (most obviously by the unification of Germany and Italy, but the same process went on throughout the continent).
The ones that are still in existance are primarily accidents of history. They’re usually in an area that has little strategic value. In the case of Monaco (prime real estate), the kings of France had no interest in taking over.
As far as true enclaves are concerned, they are also generally areas that the surrounding country has no real desire for, and they are usually populated by people who identify with the country that they are officially part of.
BTW, the US has something of an enclave in upper Minnesota. It can only be reached by land through Canada (the land is “connected” to the US over Lake of the Woods).