It is easy to forget that in a world of 190 countries, how much we are dominated by a small number of major countries (including China, Russia, USA, Japan and Germany). At the opposite end of the spectrum there are some 34 countries with populations of less than 250,000. The challenge for these smaller countries to remain sustainable is to retain their individual unique identities based on their own ideology and cultural heritage whilst interacting with the larger countries whose own responses to climate change, migration, population growth, terrorism and technology effect their external environment.

Our research explores how smaller countries are faced with the competing demands between maintaining their own idiographic value systems and their external nomothetic demands. Adopting a strategy at either extreme of this dilemma leads to a pathology. At one extreme, ignoring external changes leads to isolation and economic decline, decreasing population and eventually disappears when absorbed by their neighbours. (such as Sikkm by India 1975, Tibet by China in 1950's). Conversely, giving up their own values and accepting the nomothetic value systems of their neighbour means they are no longer a separate country (such as Hawaii in 1988 that become a US state).

We researched the cultural values systems and operational strategies of Monaco (not previously published) as our 'laboratory'. Our findings reveal its success in reconciling its idiographic values with the nomothetic systems of its neighbouring France and Italy and the wider European Union. In so doing it enjoys retaining its unique heritage whilst benefiting excellent political, business, social and security relationships with its neighbours.

Reconciling the idiographic and nomothetic values of small countries is offered as a generalizable framework for smaller countries for their future survival.