Thomas D. Walls is the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Free Republic of Liberland, a self-declared micronation on the Danube between Croatia and Serbia. He leads the project’s diplomatic efforts, pursuing international recognition and cooperation with its neighbours through what he calls “diplomacy by example”: demonstrating legitimacy through investment, innovation, and community development.
An American with a diplomatic background, he worked in Hamburg, Bonn and Berlin, including in the office of Richard Holbrooke during his time as United States Ambassador to Germany, and he brings that experience to a state that has to be argued into existence rather than inherited.
Liberland claims a few square kilometres on the Danube that neither Croatia nor Serbia counts inside its own borders, because each draws the river line differently. That leaves the project with the hardest version of the recognition problem, and Walls has spent his tenure on the slow parts of it: contacts with neighbouring governments, cooperation agreements, and turning a body of supporters into something other states can deal with.
In 2023 a formal crossing to the site was arranged with Croatia for the first time, letting citizens set foot on the territory. His case to the neighbours is regional rather than ideological: investment, jobs and stability on a stretch of river nobody wanted.
Podcast Episode 152
Thomas D. Walls: Diplomacy By Example
Thomas D. Walls, Liberland's foreign minister, on diplomacy by example, talks with Croatia and Serbia, and building a global libertarian community.
Podcast Episode 88
Thomas D. Walls: Liberland’s Minister of Foreign Affairs
Liberland Foreign Minister Thomas D. Walls on the micronation's government, diplomacy and his predictions for the project's future.
