Today I have got my prophet's hat firmly jammed on and I'm plunging down the levers of my time machine to go fast-forward into the distant future to look at how the World will be in, say, 50 or 100 years.
The key factor in the global order will not be land size, access to oceans, energy reserves, the disproportionate impact of global warming, technology, or even the impact of AI or IQ. No, the key factor will be which countries can employ nationalism and which countries won't have this option.
Already, in the West, we have moved beyond nationalism. It is now physically impossible for countries like Britain, France, America, and Germany to choose it. The last time any of those countries could have made that decision was in the 1990s. Now the moment is gone and will never return in the same form. The West is now firmly in a post-nationalist space.
Of course, there are countries in the world that still can choose nationalism, but maybe won't, and will end up going down the same path as the Western states that have already closed off that option by choosing multiculturalism. Japan & South Korea come to mind as possible examples, as well as some smaller European countries.
If they chose nationalism right now, they would be sitting pretty, but it would be a hard choice to make at the present moment for all kinds of reasons that are guaranteed to sound trivial and inane in 50 or 100 years.
If they chose nationalism right now, they would be sitting pretty, but it would be a hard choice to make at the present moment for all kinds of reasons that are guaranteed to sound trivial and inane in 50 or 100 years.
But the countries that will choose nationalism will inevitably have the whip hand over those that don't and can't.
The world is changing, and phenomena like globalism, Chimerica, and multiculturalism (in a positive or naïve sense) are now fusty and old-fashioned. The competition for resources will lead to the ascent of increasing autarky and protectionism over the international free market. We are already in the early stages of that now.
The world is changing, and phenomena like globalism, Chimerica, and multiculturalism (in a positive or naïve sense) are now fusty and old-fashioned. The competition for resources will lead to the ascent of increasing autarky and protectionism over the international free market. We are already in the early stages of that now.
But how does this work?
Imagine a sudden shortage in a number of vital commodities like wheat, oil, gas, fish, fresh water, lithium, etc. In ethnically and religiously divided societies that translates into soaring inflation and internal conflict. In homogenous societies, it can also cause conflict temporarily, but generally speaking it tends to create social cohesion, as the optimum response is a kind of rationing and regimentation of society with a view to gaining additional resources.
Imagine a sudden shortage in a number of vital commodities like wheat, oil, gas, fish, fresh water, lithium, etc. In ethnically and religiously divided societies that translates into soaring inflation and internal conflict. In homogenous societies, it can also cause conflict temporarily, but generally speaking it tends to create social cohesion, as the optimum response is a kind of rationing and regimentation of society with a view to gaining additional resources.
Strongly united countries of whatever size or level of achievement will always be better able to rise up and acquire those resources. Multicultural societies, by contrast, are liable to fracture, in-fight, and waste their strength against themselves.
This then will be the mechanism that creates a two-tier world of nations: those with agency, the ability to act and seize control of resources, and those without it, blindly engaged in punching themselves silly.
This will be the chief benefit of nationalism, a simple device for inner peace and outer strength, a benefit that is hidden in the globalised world of today, but, as the investor Warren Buffet said, "Only when the tide goes out, do we discover who has been swimming naked."
This will be the chief benefit of nationalism, a simple device for inner peace and outer strength, a benefit that is hidden in the globalised world of today, but, as the investor Warren Buffet said, "Only when the tide goes out, do we discover who has been swimming naked."
In this future scenario, the upper tier of nationalist countries is liable to prey on the weaker, divided, and confused multicultural countries, and will probably even colonise and ruthlessly exploit them. Didn't we see something like this in the 19th century?
But what if every significant country follows the West down its cursed path of confusion? In that case, the equation still holds, but it will be those countries that most quickly and effectively solve the problem by secession that will dominate those that fail to extricate themselves from their weaknesses in this way.
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