Globalists and the International Community Need to Embrace Nationalist Thinking

“Globalists,” also known by the traditional term “internationalists,” have emerged in the Trump Era of politics as the enemy of nationalist forces.  Internationalists were once seen as the answer to the global threat of increasingly ruinous wars, yet they have now become the symbol of unresponsive and unaccountable government that is far too concerned with foreign affairs to address domestic issues.  The anti-globalist movement, which has coalesced around US President Donald Trump, seeks to ensure the People are the top priority of government; however, those who advocate for the dismantling of international institutions also threaten the security and prosperity of their own nations. 
 
Although anti-globalist and nationalist movements can help reign in imbalances through much needed recalibrations of diplomatic and trade relations, they can quickly become a threat.  After all, nations that pursue their own interests at the expense of others tend to conflict with other nations, which is what fuels conflicts like the Ukraine Crisis and the South China Sea Crisis.   A world at war is a far greater threat than a relatively stable International Community that seeks to use diplomatic channels to address and resolve conflicts.  It is a failure of internationalists to adequately address the domestic interests of nations that fuels the anti-globalist movement.  To understand the anti-globalist movement, it is help to recognize nations are like families.  ​

Like family, the Peoples of nations must stick together and look out for each other.  This means putting the needs of the family above the neighbors more often than not.  When threatened or in need, family means coming together to protect each other.  On the other hand, family also requires accountability and responsibility.  Where family members are responsible for holding each other accountable for their misdeeds to each other and against others, they are also responsible for ensuring their family members contribute to the family and uphold the values of the family.  Because the family can only thrive in strong, healthy communities, this also means looking out for neighbors.
 
In families, brothers and sisters come before cousins, but even the most distant of cousins belongs to the family.  As a family of families, community members always place the needs of their families above the community, but the need for community cannot be simply sacrificed out of convenience.  In turn, functional communities always place the needs of community members above the needs of other communities.  As a national community, nations must do the same: the needs of the People of a nation must come before the needs of their cousins in other nations.  The failure of the International Community is that it fails to respect this need, which makes it dysfunctional.  In other words, the International Community must be nationalistic. 
 
The driving force behind the anti-globalist movement is a failure of government and public officials to recognize the need to serve national and more local interests before trying to address international concerns.  Although globalization is a natural process, which has been in motion since the dawn of human civilization, accelerated globalization through the use of free trade and other “liberal” policies have shifted the attention of public servants away from the needs of their own Peoples to the priorities of the International Community.  In catering the global interests, the International Community caters to the interests of the world’s most influential people and neglects the interests of the least influential people, which happen to be almost everyone.   
 
Unfortunately, the truth is that international governance has become increasingly ineffective, because international institutions, such as the UN, have tried to extend their mission beyond their capacity.  Instead of providing a platform for disputes between nations and representation for the Peoples of the world victimized by abusive, negligent governments, the International Community has tried to become another layer of government that hopes to govern the governments of the world.  The United Nations is nothing more than a diplomatic forum that lacks any ability to enforce the will of the International Community.  It is, therefore, necessary for nations to serve their own Peoples and ensure the other nations of the world serve their own Peoples.  Only by ensuring a nationalistic agenda can international governance have value.