Liberties There's nothing Artificial about our Intelligence

For many years, professors of international politics have been telling us about the decline of the nation-state and the coming transcendence of the Westphalian system. But the political critique of the nation-state comes most often from men and women on the left, who condemn its parochialism, its tendency to produce nationalist fanaticism and xenophobia, its repression of minorities. Many of them yearn for a cosmopolitan alternative, a world without borders and border guards. And yet, at this moment, much of the world or, better, the Western part of it, including many Western leftists, is rallying in support of a beleaguered Ukraine, a classic nation-state that has in the past been guilty of all the sins I just listed. The world and the West are right to rally. Why is that? I live on the left and argue often with my fellow leftists about the value of the nation-state and of the international order, or disorder, of sovereign states. The arguments are sometimes concrete and practical, about immigration, say, or the treatment of minorities — good things to argue about (I will come to them). But the arguments are more often theoretical, since in practice the leftists who argue with me have been remarkably supportive of the creation of new states and, especially, nation-states. Their political choices over the last seventy-five years give little evidence of cosmopolitanism. They celebrated the end of the European empires and the creation of independent, mostly multi-ethnic, states across Africa — and many of them then supported nationalist secessions in Biafra and South Sudan. Leftists who recognized the evil of Stalinism rejoiced when East European nation-states were liberated from Soviet domination — and watched without regret the breakup of the Soviet Union (a modern-style empire) that produced fifteen new nation-states: Lithuania; Latvia and Estonia in the north; Ukraine and Belarus in the center; Armenia and Georgia in the south; and the Muslim states of Central Asia. Some older leftists were disappointed by the collapse of Yugoslavia (remembering Tito’s nationalist defiance of Stalin), but they mostly joined in supporting the liberation of Bosnia, Kosovo, and Montenegro from Serbian rule. Leftists around the world supported the creation of an Algerian nation-state and a united Vietnamese nation-state. Here in the United States, they have championed the independence and self-determination of all the states of Central and South America. And many of them today are eager to promote Palestinian, Kurdish, and Tibetan independence, which would add three nation-states to the world — each of them with borders and border police. In fact, opposition to colonialism and great power (and regional) hegemony seems to lead, quite naturally, to repeated endorsements of the nation-state.  There is, however, one exception, one refusal of endorsement: the nation-state of Israel. Many leftists believe that it should not exist. Anti-Zionism is the latest left pathology, not so different (for those of us who have an ear for these things) from the love affair with authoritarian regimes that stand against “the West.” Still, Israel is a strange exception, especially right now, since it is a nation-state remarkably similar to Ukraine. Both these countries are the creation of peoples with strong national commitments; both Jews and Ukrainians experienced murderous oppression in the recent past — the Nazi Holocaust and the political famine organized by Stalin. Both dreamed of self-determination and political independence. And both have achieved sovereignty in territory that includes a minority population of roughly twenty percent.  I speak only of “green-line” Israel here, not of the occupied West Bank. It is possible, and I believe morally necessary, to oppose the occupation and support the Jewish right to a state — which is, indeed, no different from the Ukrainian right. The new ultra-nationalist government in Israel doesn’t understand that this right, like every national right, has limits. It is limited by the rights of the nation that comes next. But to make the oppression of the Palestinians a reason for the elimination and then the replacement of Israel is an example of ultra-nationalism turned around — and no better for the turning. The nation that comes first also has rights. In any case, the Israeli exception proves the rule: in practice, there are not many signs of