As has been discovered, that doesn't prevent some other state from doing violence to you.

The irony of doing this in former Yugoslavia is astonishing. Yes, states can fragment and borders can move .. at a considerable cost in human life. You can see it happening today in Nagorno-Karabakh, as well as the much more visible attempt by Russia to move the borders of Ukraine.

Again, this is surely not a new discovery for these people. TFA is obviously their biased explanation of events. But the behavior of the Croatian authorities could still be "surprising" if it was substantially different from past interactions. E.g. lack of formal written notice.

> the whole point is to build a state that does less of it

A state is only a state when it can defend its territory.

At the individual level, the praxis of property rights is that something belongs to you if the person with the biggest stick says it is - this is typically the state (libertarian utopia's excluded).

>… but I thought they were well aware of the coercive power of violence; the whole point is to build a state that does less of it...

in reality, in the real world, with all its immense complexity, their very very simplistic ideology leads directly to a hyper winner take all, i got mine everyone else can go die anti-social clusterfuck with significantly more violence towards everyone but those at the top.

the only people who believe their hyper selfish ideology would somehow magically lead to less violence are typically young teenagers who haven’t yet studied much human history, emotionally stunted adults, or folks who just haven’t really yet thought through most of the implications.