Isolated state of country after a deception (10)
I believe the answer is:
alienation
'isolated state' is the definition.
'alienation' can be an answer for 'state' (alienation is a kind of state). I'm unsure of the 'isolated' bit.
'country after a deception' is the wordplay.
'country' becomes 'nation' (synonyms).
'after' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'deception' becomes 'lie' (lying to someone is deceiving them).
'a'+'lie'='alie'
'nation' put after 'alie' is 'ALIENATION'.
'of' acts as a link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for alienation that I've seen before include "Estrangement" , "divorce" , "Detachment from body" , "Brecht's effect" , "the effect of Brecht" .)