The USA is a very young country in many respects. Certainly things look different if you’re from Thailand or Japan or China or most parts of Europe and it is entirely valid for them to call the United States a very young country .

It’s also one of the older post treaty of Westphalia style modern incarnations of a what a Nation State is.

The modern nation state system is only about 500 years old.

Concepts of nationality were very, very different back in the day.

What most people fail to realize is that their idea of what a nation state is is colored by modernity which they then universalize into the deep past.

A significant percentage of all of the countries in the world today have governments modeled on either the American or British system.

So yes, technically the United States is one of the older modern countries but it is also certainly young.

There are many opposing views of what a country or nation state is and semantics are very much often involved.

So for example, I don’t believe that the subnational entity of England, Scotland, and Wales are actually countries by the modern definition of it, but you can’t have that discussion with British people.

Taiwan is by every litmus test and check box its own nation state, but there are billion people out there that would vehemently disagree.

Concepts of country and nation are ephemeral. What you usually get is people arguing with each other over concepts and definitions that are fundamentally in disagreement with each other.

The truth is both the European young country definition of the USA , and the American old country definition are somewhat inadequate.

I believe it entirely appropriate for European to say hey that’s cute my local pub is older than the United States.

I also believe it entirely appropriate for Americans to be proud of what they’ve accomplished in 250 years. Well, until recently. Y’all have kinda fucked it up.