The most common and most likely answer to this crossword clue is the 7 letter word CROATIA
C
R
O
A
T
I
A
More clues leading to the result CROATIA
- Viewed from South Island, a killer whale finds land
- Island area or cape — climbing country
- Country where actor fails — rival oddly failing tofollow
- Spies crossing road, not quite the country
- Small country‘s boast whole continent listened to
- Country actor I recollected admiringly at first
- Viewed from East Island a killer whale finds land
- Recollection of island monster gripping a nation
- Country’s spies holding up two groups of soldiers
- Credit grain with first class returns for Balkan country
Buddy explains!
The straight part
We know that "a nation state" is the straight/definition part of the clue. The straight part is often a synonym or definition, in this case a nation state = croatia.The cryptic/wordplay part
In cryptic crossword there's often an wordplay/cryptic part as well.This part involves a more complex hint, such as an anagram, homophone, hidden word, etc.
Sadly, We don't have an explanation for this specific crossword clue yet.