If that was the case you might aswell call the region independent

But not for long cause unless they have a good farmer personel they would all starve

And that's without counting how to deal with internal strife

External threats that would want to put down this territory that is neither protected and isn't trading with them

I don't see a reason for why people can't be educated in a direct democracy, they would actually be more educated since people could go back to post-secondary without the threat of debt. Defense could also be sorted out in this manner, not to mention the fact that every commune is protected since everyone has the access, ability, and education to use violence. Defence forces as seen in Rojava are organized in the principle of direct democracy and they have been able to hold out against Turkey.

Well

This "army"

You have 2 options

A decentralised army, everyone making their own moves

Basically easy picks for bigger armies that just need to defeat them individually

Or a centealised comand

But then you have a direct democracy over a lot of people

And thus hundreds of opinions and diferent aproaches

Also you understimate how globalized the world is rn

Regions cannot survive without trading with others

And hopping for a single commune to have enougj personel to produce enough to trade and sustain itself

While also needing personel for mantainence and moving those goods

Numbers do start packing up

If you decide to let every commune be independent and to not trade

Congratulations, you've now made everyone's lifes worse than under capitalism

Communes could trade and should trade with each other. There is no reason for why they wouldn't negotiate with each other into unions of communes. Production would increase (As was seen in anarchist communes during the Spanish Civil War) because more jobs would be dedicated to production. Lots of jobs right now don't make anything useful. Workers in things like advertising, management, investment, and banking could be educated and work towards the production of food and useful items. Because of this reorientation towards production you would also see lower hours.

As for defence, the CNT-FAI was able to organize its forces democratically. They were crushed (like the other centralized armies in Europe) by German manpower. Soviets also played a role in the demise of the CNT-FAI because of their vanguardism.

You don't have to teach me about that

My family fought for them

But i gotta say they really didn't do a great job

Defending was easy considering they normally defended cities

Erected barricades and such which were a pain to cross

But when they decided to do something else

They failed miserably

This can be seen at the battle of Terol of 1937

They tried to make an offensive all the way north to relieve the basque country

They failed cause of a lack of disciplone

Coordination

And overall strategy

Germany only sent the condor legion

Mostly

The CNT was defeated by nationalist forces

As was the republic in its entirety

As i said communes have realistically 2 choices

I'll say more than 200 people would be almost imposible to coordinate into dping something

And with those people you need personel to mantain the commune