I’ve already done several posts on the internal contradictions of nationalism (see here, here and here). The Financial Times recently offered two more examples in a single issue. Before considering the first example, recall that a portion of Romania contains a large ethnic Hungarian population living in a region that was once a part of Hungary. Here’s the FT:
Viktor Orbán’s support for an ultranationalist candidate in Romania’s presidential election has prompted a backlash in the Hungarian diaspora, potentially jeopardising the Hungarian leader’s own election chances next year.
Romania is home to about 1mn ethnic Hungarians, many with dual nationality, who have been a crucial source of support for Orbán’s nationalist Fidesz party. But many of them have been incensed by his recent endorsement of George Simion — a populist with a history of physical and verbal violence against Hungarian speakers.
“Hungary’s leader seems to have loftier plans than the fate of Hungarians in Transylvania,” said Szilárd Toth, a history professor at the Babeș-Bolyai University in Cluj.
Nationalism derives much of its power from resentment against other nationalities. This creates a dilemma—should nationalist leaders look to align with nationalists in other countries, or with minority groups that share their ethnicity?
President Trump has frequently expressed admiration for Vladimir Putin. Both are authoritarian nationalists who believe big countries should dominate small countries. During the recent campaign, Trump suggested that he would be able to almost immediately end the war in Ukraine, presumably by using his influence with Putin, as well as by pressuring Ukraine (which relies heavily on US aid). The Trump administration even went so far as to join Russia, Iran and North Korea in voting against a UN resolution that blamed Russia for starting the war in Ukraine.
Under pressure from the US, Ukraine has indeed agreed to a ceasefire that would leave Russia in control of a significant portion of Ukrainian territory. But Putin refuses to agree to the ceasefire, causing frustration in the Trump administration. Another FT story explains the situation:
When US vice-president JD Vance was asked about the war in Ukraine at a foreign policy forum in Washington last week, diplomats were expecting Maga-style criticism of Kyiv and veiled sympathy for Russia.
Instead, they heard something quite different. Vance said of a set of Russian proposals to end the conflict: “We think they’re asking for too much.”
The phrase “Maga-style criticism” refers to the fact that many people in the Trump camp live in an alternative reality where Ukraine is to blame for the war and Zelenskyy is a bloodthirsty dictator. But even people living in an epistemic bubble must eventually face the reality that Russia is the aggressor:
Vance’s comments were part of a noticeable shift in tone by the Trump administration. US officials appear increasingly impatient with Vladimir Putin, as suspicions grow that the Russian leader, rather than Zelenskyy, may be the biggest obstacle to peace.
“The Americans had this simplistic idea — let’s charm Russia, put pressure on Zelenskyy, and we’ll get a deal,” said Wolfgang Ischinger, the former German ambassador to the US to whom Vance made his comment at last week’s forum. “It turned out that simply charming Russia is not enough.”
Putin may share Trump’s authoritarian nationalist perspective, but he doesn’t share Trump’s view of “America First”. Trump faces a dilemma. Should he align the US with other authoritarian nationalists, or should he align the US with other regimes that share our national interest?
The Trump administration offered major concessions to Russia before the negotiations even began, including a statement that Ukraine would never join Nato, as well as an offer that the US could accept the Russian acquisition of Crimea. I’m no expert on “the art of the deal”, but I’d always assumed that you’d at least wait for the negotiations to begin before offering concessions.
READER COMMENTS
Fazal Majid
May 18 2025 at 3:16pm
It’s called “negotiating against yourself” and a rookie mistake in negotiation theory.
Mactoul
May 19 2025 at 12:03am
Hitler himself wrote off South Tyrol, a cause dear to Austrians, in return for Mussolini’s neutrality during Anschluss . He was willing to deal with Poland over the corridor as well–writing off the German minority there. If these are contradictions, then I wonder which politics is without them. Certainly not the spectacle of modern liberal countries banning leading parties and imprisoning the opposition figures in order to safeguard the democracy.
I don’t understand the imperative —should nationalist leaders look to align with nationalists in other countries? Where does it come from? Certainly not from nationalism itself. What nationalist leaders are doing–aligning or not aligning with other leaders, leave alone foreign leaders, is practical politics where compromises are inevitable.
Perhaps the Hungarians aren’t sufficiently nationalistic. You need to look at Asia. There you don’t find the contradictions. It is pure unadulterated nationalism.
nobody.really
May 19 2025 at 10:58am
I share this view. In general, I would expect a nationalist to pander to whichever group he champions–often an ethnic one–and demonize everyone else, including the champions of rival nations/ethnic groups. Of course, this demonization might be feigned, much like rival professional wrestlers demonize each other on camera and lunch together off camera. But the idea that we should expect to find a League of Nationalists, akin to a League of Supervillans, seems kinda goofy.
But maybe not? I could imagine some international-minded nationalists promoting the idea that each ethnic group should return to its “homeland” and stop bugging the other ethnic groups. Thus, I could imagine that the KKK’s animus towards Jews would extend to Israel–but perhaps the KKK would celebrate Israel as a place to deport Jews?
Perhaps Scott Sumner is reflecting on the idea that leaders who endure criticism for flouting democratic norms take comfort in other leaders who also do so, thereby helping to normalize the norm violations. In this sense, rule-violators value each other–and nationalism is kind of incidental.
steve
May 19 2025 at 1:21pm
I dont think it’s nationalism per se but rather authoritarianism. Nationalism is a common tool for authoritarians but not an essential one. There does seem to be what amounts to at least a mutual admiration club amongst authoritarians even if they may disagree on some details. It looks like Trump wants to be part of that club.
Steve
Mactoul
May 20 2025 at 12:44am
The term international-minded nationalists is getting too close to oxymoronic.
Mark
May 21 2025 at 2:23pm
It’s not really oxymoronic; most nationalist movements historically have been internationally-minded: their greatest policy goal has usually been territorial conquest and expansion of hegemony over other nations. The tendency of nationalists toward isolationism is a fairly recent phenomenon, though increasingly it looks like this due more to circumstantial differences rather than temperamental differences, as American nationalists are increasingly sympathetic to aggressive territorial expansion. Nationalism has usually been an outward looking ideology in the worst possible way.
Matthias
May 22 2025 at 6:45am
Germany is safe guarding their constitution, when they ban parties.
Have a look at the 20th century history of Germany for why popularity doesn’t equate to ‘good idea’.
Daniel Hill
May 19 2025 at 2:25am
We must always remind ourselves this is the crowd led by a man who said “Who knew healthcare was hard?”
Eventually they will also realize tariffs are paid by Americans and that you should be nice to your allies and tough on your enemies, not vice versa. The only question is how much damage they do before then.
David S
May 20 2025 at 8:52am
It’s impressive how many contradictory nationalist ideologies that MAGA can sustain concurrently. Trump’s superpower is that he can switch between ideologies at an instant and suffer no criticism for inconsistency. He is consistent on the fact that he is the Nation of Trump. Meanwhile, his acolytes seem to fall into some different camps:
-Racial Isolationist Nationalism: Stephen Miller’s dream country of a pure white America that has no economic dependency on the rest of the world. Also include Vance, and maybe Bondi and Noem.
-Neo-Mercantilist Nationalism: Navarro’s dream country of re-shored manufacturing and unbalanced international trade where America reigns supreme with a trade surplus and dollar dominance. Includes Lutnick and some domestic businesses. Less interested in racial dominance and mostly opportunistic about international relations.
-Neo-Liberalism with American Characteristics Nationalism: The MAGA oriented tech bro set that includes Musk, Bezos, and Zuckerberg. They’re mostly interested in personal wealth and absurd vanity projects like colonizing Mars. They can align with the other MAGA camps as required, but seem to be losing some political influence.
nobody.really
May 20 2025 at 12:58pm
“The best reason why Monarchy is a strong government is that it is an intelligible government. The mass of mankind understand it, and they hardly anywhere in the world understand any other. It is often said that men are ruled by their imaginations; but it would be truer to say they are governed by the weakness of their imaginations. The nature of a constitution, the action of an assembly, the play of parties, the unseen formation of a guiding opinion, are complex facts, difficult to know and easy to mistake. But the action of a single will, the fiat of a single mind, are easy ideas: anybody can make them out, and no one can ever forget them. When you put before the mass of mankind the question, ‘Will you be governed by a king, or will you be governed by a constitution?’ the inquiry comes out thus—: ‘Will you be governed in a way you understand, or will you be governed in a way you do not understand?’” Walter Bagehot, The English Constitution (1894), Chap. 2 “The Monarchy.”
“L’État, c’est moi!” Louis XIV, King of France and Navarre, articulating the unitary executive theory.
Jose Pablo
May 21 2025 at 11:52am
Louis XVI learned the hard way how wrong his great-great-grandfather was.
Mactoul
May 21 2025 at 12:23am
Vance has married an Indian and his children carry Hindu name. So Vance can be safely assumed not to dream this particular dream.
Jose Pablo
May 21 2025 at 11:29am
The most zealous are often the converts.
Warren Platts
May 21 2025 at 10:22am
To be sure. But what practical good does that realization do? Because it says nothing about what we should do. We’ve only got about four basic options:
Do nothing and let Ukraine be wholly assimilated into the neo-Czarist Russian Empire. This of course makes a mockery of international rule of law, the sovereignty of borders and the principle that borders in the 21st century should not be redrawn at the point of a gun. Success will no doubt embolden more adventures by Russia and other nefarious actors.
Turn Ukraine into an Afghanistan-style forever war in order to “bleed” Russia. This seems to be the Democratic strategy: give Ukraine enough weapons to not lose, but not enough to win. Certainly, in terms of loss of human life on both sides, this is the cruelest of all strategies. Moreover, the strategy has backfired: Russia is not only quantitatively stronger in terms of troop numbers, it’s also qualitatively better. The Russian army is much more formidable now than in 2022. Furthermore, this strategy has firmly pushed Russian into a “no limits” Axis consisting of Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran. Finally, this “strategy” could fail altogether like the Confederate defense of Richmond or the WWI German trenches in late 1918; at that point, the our choices would be (1) or (3) below:
Direct military intervention by NATO. That of course means direct intervention by USA because for the most part, NATO is worthless with the exception of the British, and maybe the Canadians and Danes and Poles and Finns. The problem with this strategy, mainly, is that the Americans are sick of war. We’ve been fighting straight for 35 years. Moreover, the optimal time for direct intervention was February and March 2022. Remember that 100 mile long armored column? The U.S. Air Force could’ve turned that into a 100 mile highway of death. But the geniuses at the White House and Pentagon at the time thought a decisive victory over Putin would contradict the “bleed Russia” strategy.
Give peace a chance. The best thing about peace is that it will stop the killing. The problem is it’s going to require territorial concessions, at least at de facto level, because to rollback the Russians to 1992 borders will require direct NATO intervention. Meantime, Putin can declare victory since he’s got his land bridge to Crimea. The problem is Putin doesn’t see any need to stop the war because he figures he’s winning the battle of attrition and that at some point, the Ukrainian lines will crumble, the war of maneuver will resume, and he’ll promptly roll up the entire country.
So what else is there? More sanctions on Russia? The problem with that is there’s very little left to sanction with respect to Russia directly. Therefore, secondary sanctions on China is the only other thing I can think of. Let’s face it: Russia could not pursue this war without the support of China. Therefore, at the end of this 90 day grace period, Trump should ratchet the China tariffs back up to prohibitory levels and tell Chairman Xi they are going to stay in place as long as the Ukraine War continues. This will test the limits of the China-Russia “no-limits” alliance; if there’s anyone that can twist Putin’s arm, it’s Chairman Xi. What are the down-sides for us? Not much, as far as I can see: the price of some imported items might go up but exported items like food and natural gas will go down in price, thus the overall price level will not budge much if at all; in all likelihood, the main effect will be deflationary. The tariffs might temporarily cause a bearish stock market, but we’re overdue for a correction anyway; the smart money will view it as a buying opportunity; and anyways, 70% of Americans do not own stocks, so only the wealthiest third of Americans will be directly affected. Certainly, any U.S. economic costs imposed by such tariffs will be far, far less than that the costs in blood & treasure that American direct intervention would entail. The laissez-faire free trade zealots will howl of course, but then they shouldn’t be complaining about Russia’s war of conquest because by trading with China they are directly helping Putin. So choose your poison: stop Putin by ending trade with China; or continue to aid Putin by continuing to trade with China — but please promise not to complain when Ukraine is finally overrun!
nobody.really
May 22 2025 at 4:32pm
“Make a mockery of” = reveal an inconvenient truth.
In reality, we live in a world of dominance by force. International law applies only as far as someone can and will bring force to enforce it.
Ukraine’s fall would not make a mockery of NATO Article 5, which declares that an attack on one member is an attack on all. But I do not understand NATO as policeman to the world; I understand it as a mutual aid society. Finland and Sweden came to recognize this fact, and thus opted to join NATO—incurring the burdens and accepting the benefits of membership.
Ukraine is not, and never has been, a member of NATO. Ukraine has been, like Finland and Sweden, a free-rider on the international legal order. “Membership has its privileges.”
Here at last we see an argument grounded not in third parties showing charity for Ukraine, but third parties seeing a self-interest in rebuking Russia. This invites the questions “Is this statement accurate?” and “What would be the costs and benefits of impeding Russia’s success?”
Regarding the first statement: I don’t know how many nations would look at this war with envy. Maybe Ukrainian minerals and wheat fields are more valuable than I appreciate. But Russia has tanked its economy, and its population is in free-fall—aided by the fact that the war is both killing off a chunk of its reproductive population and scaring away the rest. And as with Chechnya, I expect Russia is simply buying itself an eternity of guerrilla insurrection. Doubtless there are leaders who will look on this and say, “Heck yeah—deal me into that game!” But I suspect those are leaders who would be inclined to pursue territorial ambitions regardless.
So we turn to the second question: What are the costs and benefits of alternative actions?
Yup. It’s a bloody strategy, but depleting Russia arguably advances the interests of NATO. And I don’t know that NATO is force-feeding Ukraine weapons and intelligence; I expect Ukrainian leaders could surrender any time they choose.
Wars, like any enterprise, will provide a population with new skills. But the strongest weapon in any war is a strong civilian economy that generates the necessary revenues. Russia has expanded its military at the expense of its civilian economy. Time will tell how long Russia—like the USSR before it—will be able to maintain this edifice. The difficulty that Russia (and Ukraine) are having in recruiting new soldiers suggests that the formidable front papers over a weak back.
I have difficulty seeing any muscular action by the West that would not have resulted in such an alignment. True, there will be little cause for pariah states to align if no one punishes them; but if people punish them, they will have cause to form their own mutual aid pact.
To clarify, the strategy is intended to deplete Russian resources. If Ukraine surrenders or is defeated, the strategy would end—but that fact would not magically restore the resources Russia had expended.
I agree that if this strategy reaches a conclusion, the West will need to adopt some different strategy—but that is not, by itself, a reason to abandon the current strategy now.
*Ahem* The US military adopted the Don’t Ask/Don’t Tell policy in 1994, and repealed all restrictions on homosexuality in 2011. So perhaps it would be more appropriate to say that the US has been fighting continuously for 35 years.
Damn, that’s beautiful, guy. You should write poetry. Or bumper stickers.
Agreed: “Peace” would inevitably require recognizing (at least tacitly) Russian control of Unkranian territory–and perhaps ALL Ukranian territory. This is the context from which to evaluate the other options. And from this vantage point, the strategy of simply making Russia’s actions very, very expensive starts to look pretty good.
That’s a constructive idea!
Alas, the US has a variety of reasons for imposing sanction-like policies on China—and it seems likely that some goals will be sacrificed in obtaining progress on other goals. Will a concern for isolating Russia exceed a concern for reducing China’s theft of intellectual property and burdensome requirements imposed on firms setting up shop in China? Will it seem more important to negotiators than US demand for rare earth minerals, or US aversion to fentanyl?
Knut P. Heen
May 21 2025 at 2:31pm
In Europe, nationalism has mostly been about smaller nations trying to gain independence from larger countries. In order to gain independence you need your own language, culture, etc. and to be able to defend yourself. This is the real reason why the Scots run around in kilts playing the bagpipe. They want independence. They probably hate English interference in Scotland, but I doubt they hate the English as such.
Some areas in Europe have traditionally been contested with different nationalities living there. Suppression of the minority’s language, culture, and immigration has therefore been common by the majority to avoid secession. That naturally produces some resentment.
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