The Trojan Horse of Nationalism

One of the many perils of nationalism: it serves up a country on a plate to the predators of the world. And this can be especially deadly for small-to-mid-size countries - and even to larger ones.

I wrote last week about the rise or really the resurgence of what I call the SIMBY doctrine in international affairs. But of course SIMBYism is itself an advanced symptom of a deeper rot and corruption, which is nationalism. Or perhaps we can say that the real problem is a norm of violent predation and that nationalism is its preferred Trojan Horse that, once willingly admitted, kills its prey from the inside. This is an especially acute risk for smaller or mid-sized countries — but it can be a risk even for larger powers.

First, though, we must define nationalism, which itself is a subject of considerable debate — but a debate that we will sidestep here. For present purposes, nationalism is the promotion of parochial national interests as being superior to the interests of other nations or groups or individuals, as this has been the most salient feature of nationalism in the real world in the last 250 years.¹ And those “national interests” tend to be defined by the particular group doing the shouting — and in practice that tends to be a certain ethnic or social group, to the exclusion of others.

Nationalism today involves the loud promotion of a certain ethnically and sometimes religiously defined national identity, virulent opposition to immigration, and an equally virulent opposition to national membership or cooperation in any international organizations, institutions, or treaties. It holds “globalism” as its enemy.²

In the US, this is summed up in the Trumpist slogan “America First,” which was also used, tellingly, by American nationalists in the 1930s (bankrolled and supported by Nazi Germany). And now it has been adapted and adopted by the right wing in Canada: the Conservative Party and its leader Pierre Poilievre now run around trumpeting “Canada First.”

There are larger forces at play here as well: the promoters of right-wing politics have become, ironically enough, globalizing proselytizers, with their own conferences, summits, official visits, and, of course, large transnational infusions of money — including at least $300 million from Russia that we know of— to fund far-right nationalist movements and political parties in other countries. And this does not even account for the other material support provided by Russia and China in the form of cyber-warfare, with disinformation campaigns, online bots, and payments to influencers.

Vladimir Putin, wishing he had a Sharpie.

Yet there is an inherent contradiction lurking inside the idea of a transnational nationalist movement. “America First” and “Canada First” may be able to co-exist when each is a mere slogan of a political movement or candidate. But what happens when each becomes the official slogan of a ruling regime?

One of the entire points of nationalism is a lack of international cooperation and a chauvinistic, us-above-all outlook on the world. Nationalism sees the world as a hierarchy, with the preferred nation and exclusionary national identity supreme above all others. And nationalism usually looks for a scapegoat, some internal and/or external Other that is the culprit and cause of national weakness, which must be fought and expunged.

Once the principle and norm of international cooperation is shredded, geopolitics reverts to its atavistic default mode of might-makes-right, of survival of the fittest. And in that dog-eat-dog world, the larger dogs will inevitably prey on the smaller. Indeed, that is the whole point, from the perspective of the bigger, more aggressive dogs.

Eastern European countries may flirt with or succumb to right-wing nationalist politics, but it will make them Kremlin client states again, as Belarus and Hungary already are. Canadians may shout “Canada First” thinking that they’re being strong patriots, but the more Canada drifts to the right, the more Donald Trump and his cronies will view it as weakness and an invitation to intervene (quite possibly with Russia and China’s encouragement). Past history gives another example: while Italy may have literally invented the word “fascism,” once Mussolini joined arms with Hitler, he quickly found himself the junior partner dominated by Berlin and dragged into a catastrophic conflagration.

A smaller or even mid-sized power may think that its nationalism is its own, but in practice it does not work that way. Any nationalism opens the trapdoor into a hyper-predatory hell, where one country’s nationalist ambitions can and will be trumped by a larger, more murderous country’s nationalist ambitions. They are mutually exclusive.

Nationalism does not make a country an island — but a target.

The supreme irony in this is that nationalism is a mirage — it is the vehicle for foreign domination of one’s nation. It is not a blessing but a curse. It masks weakness as strength. It is a trick and a trap — a Trojan Horse.

And in our particular historical moment, that predation has one primary source in particular: Vladimir Putin and his regime, which has pursued an insidious divide-and-conquer strategy for the last 25 years, driving wedges in the alliances of the large democracies.

Putin’s weapon of choice has been nationalism. Turn a country away from international cooperation, get it to exit international institutions, focus it inward to persecute its immigrants and minorities, and leave it economically and strategically weaker, either shrinking into itself (the UK) or becoming locally aggressive (the US). Cut the ties holding NATO and the EU together — destroying the defensive net of containment that protects Europe from Russian predation — and the Kremlin can rebuild the Soviet Empire again, or even exceed it, with tentacles from London to Alaska, and an America safely contained within the Americas, fighting smaller localized squabbles with Canada, Greenland, and Panama.

We all must recognize this reality and make it clear.

Voting for American nationalism is voting for Russian corruption of America.

Voting for Canadian nationalism is voting for American domination — and saying “Canada First” is saying “America First.”

Voting for German or French or Italian nationalism is voting for Russian domination all of Europe.

Anyone who does not see this trap is inside the trap.

1. If anyone wishes to call this hierarchical us-above-all sentiment by some name other than “nationalism,” then that is a worthy debate but a separate one. For one thing, if you wish to substitute “jingoism” instead of nationalism, that seems reasonable, although I would argue “jingoism” is a more archaic word now, so using “nationalism” makes more sense. And yes, there is a possibility of a nationalism that appears more positive rather than negative, e.g. the nationalism of an oppressed group longing for national independence. But here I am concerned with the nationalism of oppressors rather than of the oppressed.

2. I would argue that none of this is new, however. This has literally been the playbook for nationalism for centuries — right down to the scapegoating of Jews as those most responsible for globalization, international finance, international treaties and institutions, etc., whether such anti-Semitism was peddled in 1790, 1890, 1930, or 2017.