SATISH SHARMA - not just Rotigraphy.: Nationalism, in a very important way, limits what great powers can do.

https://x.com/nxt888/status/1866365410850881858

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JOHN MEARSHEIMER: "When I was young, I was in the American Military between 1965 and 1975 (which was coterminous with the Vietnam War). During that war, many people argued in the beginning that the Americans were fighting against communism: 'This was U.S. liberal democracy capitalism versus communism.' But it eventually became clear to most Americans, certainly to me, that what we were up against was not communism. We were up against Vietnamese nationalism. It was that same nationalism that finished off the French at Dien Bien Phu in 1954. It finished off the Americans in 1975. You do not want to invade a country like Vietnam because the Vietnamese are incredibly nationalist. The Chinese, by the way, found this out in 1979. Nationalism is a remarkably powerful force. That’s why we live in a world of nation-states. In that world of nation-states, you do have great powers. And those great powers sometimes have enormous influence. We all agree this is true with the United States. But the United States cannot create an empire like those empires of the past—the British Empire, the French Empire, and so forth. In my story, it cannot even invade countries, occupy them, and try to run their politics. That too is a prescription for disaster. Nationalism, in a very important way, limits what great powers can do. I often argue—and this is my final point—that the two forces in the modern world that put the greatest limits on great powers, including the United States, are number one, nuclear weapons, and number two, nationalism."

5:12 PM · Dec 10, 2024