ZURICH – Scotland’s vote on independence from the United Kingdom has spurred widespread debate about the secession of small states, such as Slovenia and Croatia in 1991, or the independence drive today in Spain’s autonomous region of Catalonia. But the narrow focus on the political and economic implications for Scotland and the UK – or, for that matter, the referendum’s decisive pro-union outcome – should not overshadow one of the more overlooked geopolitical trends of our time: the rise of small countries.