What, exactly, is the matter with nationalism? Many of Donald Trump's supporters must be asking this question as the foreign policy establishmentrains criticism on the president's address to the United Nations General Assembly. The answer is that while nationalism itself is natural and even healthy, the sort of uninhibited, cut-throat nationalism Trump favors has often caused catastrophe in global affairs.
Nationalism is not inherently bad, of course. It is an unavoidable characteristic of a world made up of individual nations that each have their own identities and interests. And if nationalism refers to a belief in the unique nature and value of one's country, and the desire to prioritize its interests over those of other countries, then nationalism is a necessary ingredient of U.S. foreign policy. To reflexively condemn nationalism, as some of Trump's critics have done, is to lose sight of the fact that the world can be a nasty place in which states must indeed look out for themselves.
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