The Nationalist Revival

1. Nationalism is a fundamental human psychology, not merely a toxic ideology.

The argument of this book is that national identity is not just a product of where a person is born or emigrated to, but of deeply held sentiments that are usually acquired during childhood.

Deep-seated sentiment. National identity is a profound social psychology, not just a political ideology or a "myth." It's acquired in childhood, akin to family loyalty, and provides a framework for understanding one's place in the world, bolstering self-esteem and deflecting the fear of mortality. This "banal nationalism" is inculcated through everyday life:

• Learning national history and heroes
• Visiting monuments and participating in celebrations
• Saluting the flag and singing the anthem
• Referring to inhabitants as "we" and "us"

Essential for governance. Nationalist sentiment is crucial for the functioning of a democracy, which relies on a common identity, and for a welfare state, where citizens accept financial responsibility for strangers. It underpins the public's commitment to upholding election results and adhering to laws without coercion, fostering mutual trust and collective action. Without this shared identity, a country becomes difficult or impossible to govern, as seen in regions plagued by civil disorder or rival nationalisms.

Dual nature. While nationalism can be exploited by demagogues for nativist or imperial agendas, leading to racism and genocide, it can also be a force for good. Political leaders can appeal to it to rally citizens against foreign conquest or colonial domination, as exemplified by figures like Abraham Lincoln or the French revolutionaries of 1789. The direction nationalism takes depends heavily on historical circumstances and the appeals made by political movements.

2. Post-WWII globalism, by ignoring national sentiments, inadvertently fueled a populist backlash.

Policymakers in the United States and Europe embraced in the 1990s and early 2000s the growth of new international organizations and the expansion of older ones.

Suppressing nationalism. After World War II, victorious powers sought to prevent a revival of aggressive nationalism by creating regional and international organizations like the United Nations, World Bank, IMF, and the European Economic Community. These institutions successfully prevented another world war, fostered economic growth, and suppressed older forms of nationalism, leading to a belief that nationalism was obsolete.

Embracing globalization. Emboldened by these successes and the end of the Cold War, the 1990s and early 2000s saw a push for global economic integration and the subordination of national sovereignty to international rule. Leaders like Bill Clinton and Tony Blair championed globalization, expanding organizations like the EU (with its single currency and open borders) and the WTO, while multinational corporations became untethered to specific countries.

Unintended consequences. This era of unchecked globalization, however, created new winners and losers, leading to widespread job losses in manufacturing, massive immigration flows, and fears of Islamist terrorism. These developments reawakened dormant nationalist sentiments, giving rise to populist parties and politicians like Donald Trump, UKIP, and Germany's AfD. Cosmopolitan critics, by dismissing these movements as mere echoes of fascism, failed to address the underlying grievances that provoked this nationalist revival.

3. The Euro's flawed design exacerbated economic divisions and ignited nationalist resentment across Europe.

An integrated monetary regime for such disparate economies as Europe’s supply-based North and demand-based South cannot work equally well for both.

A dream unfulfilled. The Euro, intended to be the glue binding the European Union and fostering a "new we-feeling," instead created deep divisions. The Eurozone comprised disparate economies:

• Northern economies (e.g., Germany): Export-driven, focused on productivity and low costs.
• Southern economies (e.g., Greece, Italy): Dependent on domestic consumption, public spending, and private debt, with lower productivity.
  The common currency eliminated devaluation as a tool for the South to manage trade deficits, while the Growth and Stability Pact restricted deficit spending, forcing Southern countries into austerity.

Divergence, not convergence. This structure led to a massive flow of capital from the North to the South, financing deficits and private investments. However, the 2008 Great Recession exposed the fragility of this arrangement, leading to sovereign debt crises in the South and demands for draconian austerity measures from Brussels and the European Central Bank. Instead of convergence, the Euro produced "vertical inequality," transforming qualitative differences into quantitative disparities.

Fueling nationalism. The economic fallout sparked widespread protest and nationalist sentiment. In Greece, Spain, and Italy, anger was directed at Germany and the EU for imposing harsh bailout conditions, leading to the rise of Euroskeptic populist parties. In Northern countries like Germany and Finland, anti-bailout parties emerged, protesting against supporting the "improvident South." The Euro, once a symbol of unity, became a source of national resentment and a catalyst for the "us" versus "them" mentality.

4. Uncontrolled immigration and terrorism catalyzed Europe's dramatic nationalist resurgence.

But this effort, like that of integrating Europe’s economies, began to run aground in the 2000s when cultural and economic concerns about migration became fused with fear of Islamist terrorist attacks.

Unprepared for migration. Europe's history of emigration, not immigration, left it ill-equipped to handle the massive influx of migrants post-WWII. Initial "guest worker" programs and later family reunification laws led to large, often segregated, communities of immigrants, many of whom were Muslim and struggled to assimilate. The EU's push for open borders (Schengen Agreement) and liberal asylum policies further exacerbated these challenges, allowing millions of refugees from conflicts in Africa and Asia to enter.

Fusion of fears. The early 2000s saw a political rebellion, ignited by large-scale Islamist terrorist attacks across Europe. This fused with growing economic and cultural grievances against migrants, particularly among Europe's "left-behinds" in declining industrial areas. Public opinion polls revealed widespread concern that refugees would increase domestic terrorism and that diversity was making their countries "a worse place to live."

Political repercussions. This confluence of fears had dramatic political consequences:

• Brexit: Immigration was the single most important issue, with campaigns highlighting "breaking point" due to EU's failure to control borders.
• France: Marine Le Pen's National Front saw unprecedented electoral gains.
• Italy: Anti-immigrant parties like the League, running on "Italians First," surged in popularity amidst a flood of asylum-seekers.
• Scandinavia & Austria: New parties opposing open borders and Islam made significant inroads, often joining governments.
  This period saw the vilification of Muslims and the re-emergence of distinctions between "real nationals," demonstrating how genuine grievances, when exploited by nationalist politicians, can descend into dangerous rhetoric.

5. Germany's AfD and Eastern Europe's illiberal democracies signify a "return of the repressed" nationalism.

The AfD, like some of the smaller openly pro-fascist groups in Italy or the dissenting wing of the Front National, appears to be symptomatic of what Freud called the return of the repressed.

Germany's repressed past. Post-WWII Germany actively suppressed nationalist sentiment, viewing it as an echo of Nazism. However, underlying ethnic views of citizenship persisted, favoring ethnic Germans over long-term Turkish guest workers. The 2010 bestseller "Germany Abolishes Itself" by Thilo Sarrazin, criticizing Muslim immigration, revealed a simmering discontent. This paved the way for the Alternativ für Deutschland (AfD), initially Euroskeptic, to pivot to an anti-immigrant, anti-Islam platform.

Merkel's miscalculation. Angela Merkel's decision in 2015 to open Germany's borders to over a million Muslim refugees, declaring "We can manage this," was a turning point. The subsequent New Year's Eve assaults in Cologne by men identified as Arab or North African asylum-seekers abruptly ended public enthusiasm for open borders. The AfD surged, becoming the official opposition party, openly rejecting multiculturalism, declaring "Islam does not belong to Germany," and even flouting taboos about Germany's Nazi past.

Eastern European defiance. In Hungary and Poland, historical experiences of foreign domination and cultural extinction fostered a defensive, often ethnically pure, nationalism. Viktor Orban's Fidesz in Hungary and Jaroslaw Kaczynski's Law and Justice in Poland, both leveraging Christian nationalism and left-wing economic policies, gained power by defying EU dictates on immigration and liberal democracy. They consolidated state power, attacked independent institutions, and framed EU criticism as foreign interference, echoing their nations' long struggles against external control.

6. American nationalism, rooted in a Euro-Protestant identity, was reawakened by economic decline, immigration, and terror.

In the last third of the twentieth century, a succession of presidential candidates evoked these fears of economic, social, and moral decline.

Foundational identity. American nationalism, predating the revolution, was initially defined by an Anglo-American, Protestant identity, emphasizing exceptionalism, a "shining city on the hill," and the Protestant Ethic. While this identity expanded to include "Euro-Americans" over centuries, it faced renewed challenges from the late 1960s with new waves of immigration from Mexico, Central America, and Asia, and the civil rights movement. These new immigrants, often unskilled, competed for jobs and strained social services, sparking a backlash over language and cultural unity.

Triple threat. The early 21st century intensified these nationalist sentiments through three key developments:

• 9/11 Terrorist Attacks: Fueled explicit and exclusionary nationalism, linking immigration to terrorism and increasing anti-immigrant sentiment.
• China's Economic Rise: WTO entry led to massive job losses in American manufacturing, contributing to the "hollowing out of the middle class" and fears of economic decline.
• The Great Recession: Exacerbated internal divisions, fueling resentment among the "Euro-American core" towards African-Americans and Latino immigrants perceived as "free riders."

Trump's appeal. Donald Trump, inheriting the mantle of conservative nationalism from figures like Reagan and Buchanan, tapped into these deep-seated fears. His "America First" message resonated with "left-behind" white working-class voters concerned about illegal immigration, "bad trade deals," and "political correctness." His supporters, often skeptical of immigration, valuing Christian identity, and believing in a limited definition of "true American," displayed a credulousness and veneration for Trump characteristic of explicit nationalist movements.

7. Trump's "America First" rejected globalist excesses but risked dismantling constructive internationalism.

No country has ever prospered that failed to put its own interests first.

Challenging the consensus. Donald Trump, drawing from his business experience and visceral reactions, recognized the failures of post-Cold War globalism. He questioned the efficacy of expensive, ill-defined alliances and overseas commitments that he believed drained American resources and neglected domestic problems. His "America First" approach aimed to replace America's ideological ambition to remake the world with a narrow nationalism focused on asserting America's material interests against rivals.

Hobbesian worldview. Trump viewed global politics through a Hobbesian lens of independent nations in conflict, rather than the Lockean vision of a world order bound by a social contract among like-minded democracies. He disdained multilateral treaties and alliances like the WTO and NATO, preferring bilateral agreements and the singular exercise of power. He showed no interest in promoting human rights abroad, often admiring "strong leaders" regardless of their democratic credentials.

A destructive negation? While Trump's approach correctly identified imbalances in the world economy and the obsolescence of some post-Cold War institutions, his solutions were often crude and potentially destructive. His focus on eliminating trade deficits, for instance, was based on simplistic economics and risked sparking ruinous trade wars. By shedding American alliances and employing toxic rhetoric, he risked inspiring new alliances against the United States and reinforcing the worst tendencies in global politics. The challenge for the future is whether his successors can build upon his negation of obsolete global arrangements to create a new, more stable international order, or if his actions will leave the world in a more perilous state.

8. US foreign policy post-Cold War repeatedly underestimated other nations' deep-seated nationalism.

The United States, which has been driven since its founding by a messianic vision to remake the world in its own image, repeatedly failed during this period to recognize the particular history and mission that drives other countries.

Messianic ambition. After the Cold War, the US pursued a foreign policy of "enlargement," aiming to spread American-style free-market democracies globally. This messianic vision, however, consistently overlooked the powerful nationalist sentiments and unique historical trajectories of other nations, leading to significant failures.

Mideast miscalculations. The 2003 invasion of Iraq, based on the assumption that Americans would be "greeted as liberators," instead unleashed suppressed nationalist, tribal, and religious hostilities, leading to the rise of ISIS and regional destabilization. Subsequent nation-building efforts in Libya and Syria under the Obama administration similarly failed, demonstrating a consistent misapprehension of local dynamics and the futility of imposing American ideals.

Russia and China's resurgence. The Clinton administration's efforts to transform post-Soviet Russia through "shock therapy" and NATO expansion were met with a massive economic depression and a resurgence of aggressive Russian nationalism under Vladimir Putin, who viewed the Soviet collapse as a "geopolitical disaster." Similarly, welcoming China into the WTO, expecting it to democratize, instead empowered an autocratic regime that gamed the system, leading to US job losses and an increasingly assertive Chinese nationalism driven by a "century of humiliation" and a "Chinese dream" of global dominance. These policies, by ignoring deep-seated national grievances and aspirations, inadvertently fueled the very forces they sought to contain or transform.

9. Globalization's uneven benefits created "left-behinds," forming the base for right-wing populism.

Another result of globalization has been a rise in inequality and uneven economic development in the United States and other countries that have followed the global deregulatory playbook described as the “Washington consensus.”

The "Washington Consensus" fallout. Globalization, characterized by capital mobility, free trade, floating exchange rates, and reduced immigration barriers, was never fully realized but had profound impacts. In countries adopting the "Washington Consensus" deregulatory playbook, it led to a significant rise in inequality and uneven economic development. Corporations gained immense power over domestic workers, threatening to move production abroad, which exerted downward pressure on wages and weakened labor movements.

The "left-behinds." This capital mobility, combined with a massive influx of unskilled workers, transformed mid-wage occupations into low-wage ones and deterred companies from investing in productivity improvements. While workers and managers in finance and high-technology prospered, a large segment of the population—the "left-behinds" in manufacturing and mining towns—felt economically and socially marginalized. They blamed trade, immigration, and global elites for their plight.

Political transformation. This growing discontent among the "left-behinds" fundamentally reshaped politics. It crippled the ability of traditional left-leaning parties (Democrats, Social Democrats) to deliver for their working-class constituents, while simultaneously boosting the appeal of right-wing populist parties. These parties effectively combined economic critiques of globalization with cultural and nativist appeals, harnessing the anger and sense of powerlessness among those who felt abandoned by the globalized economy.

10. A sustainable international order must acknowledge and integrate national interests, not dismiss them.

In the wake of globalization’s failure, can a new international order be created that acknowledges and doesn’t sidestep or discount historic nationalist sentiments?

Beyond Hobbesian nationalism. While Trump's "Hobbesian" nationalism correctly highlights the need for national sovereignty—essential for an egalitarian society and a robust safety net—it has inherent limits. Many global challenges, such as climate change, nuclear proliferation, financial crises, and epidemics, demand cooperative solutions through regional and international bodies. A purely self-interested national approach is insufficient for these interconnected problems.

Reclaiming internationalism. The alternative is not a return to the excesses of globalism, which subordinates nations to market forces, but a revival of true internationalism. This involves nations ceding part of their sovereignty to address shared problems, as seen in the original Bretton Woods Agreement or the early European Community. This form of internationalism recognizes national interests while fostering cooperation, rather than dismissing or sidestepping deeply held nationalist sentiments.

The path forward. Creating such an order is challenging, especially in a multipolar world with rising powers like China and Russia, and increasing regional rivalries. Past international cooperation thrived under a single hegemonic power, a condition no longer fully present. The future demands a learning process, compressed into decades, where nations, particularly great powers, learn to coexist peacefully and cooperate on global challenges. This requires a new synthesis that transcends the failures of globalization and acknowledges nationalism's enduring power, rather than attempting to eradicate it.

Last updated: March 18, 2026