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Good or bad, it also caused the ruin of empires, and brought about the violent awakening of the subject continents of Asia and Africa.
Men have tried, and signally failed, to chain nationalism with such supranational organizations as the League of Nations and the United Nations. The League sundered on the rock of big-power indifference. The U.N. has shown a limited ability to marshal world opinion and to keep open the lines of communication between the many wrangling blocs. But the U.N. has never been able to force compliance on a great power. No nation, large or small, is prepared to surrender sovereignty, and control of its destiny, to any group of outsiders.
No Choice. Yet nationalism emerged considerably tamed from the blood bath of World War II. The threat of imminent Communist takeover drove the Western countries into a new sense of unity and interdependence. Consultation and cooperation helped soften the old national rivalries, and more pragmatic goals replaced the rhetoric and passion of the past. France, Britain and The Netherlands lost their overseas colonies, then found to their surprise that they did not waste away in the process; indeed, their economies became stronger than in the imperial days.
The concept of Europe's Common Market provided a device through which free nations might band together for common strength and yet maintain their sovereignty. In the process they could fulfill what Historian Hans Kohn enumerates as the modern nation's obligations to its citizens: 1) widespread education, 2) economic and social mobility, 3) emancipation of women, 4) industrialization, and 5) public welfare. Says an Italian Deputy: "It's possible to be a good Italian patriot and a European patriot too. You can love your family as well as your country. You do not have to choose."
Warlike Favor. To the new nations of Asia and Africa, nationalism has been a blessing and a curse. A blessing because it won them freedom, a curse because the Afro-Asian nationalists deeply believed the fallacy that independence automatically would bring with it efficient, humane and just government. They were also handicapped because they inherited territories whose borders had been artificially drawn by a parent imperial power. The borders often divided people who spoke the same tongue. More often, included within the state were rambunctious minorities who themselves wanted independence, such as the Shan and Karen tribesmen in Burma, and the Nagas in India.
Some Indians think that Red China may have done their nation a favor by its invasion: the war has forced such separatist-minded groups as the Tamils in the south and the Sikhs in the north to rally behind the central government.
Nationalism survives as a potent force even under Communism. When the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union, Stalin replaced the Internationale with a nationalist anthem, pulled out all the stops in calling for the defense of "Mother Russia," and dubbed the conflict the "Great Patriotic War." The current rift between Russia and Red China, and the earlier split with Yugoslavia, reflect strong nationalistic as well as ideological differences.