What are your definitions for "nationalist" and "internationalist"? You seem to be using meanings which are not operative here or even meaningfully coherent. F

What are your definitions for "nationalist" and "internationalist"? You seem to be using meanings which are not operative here or even meaningfully coherent. For example, nationalism doesn't preclude cooperation or even immigration. That would be some extreme form of jingoism and isolationism that rarely exists. On the contrary, it is cooperation between diverse groups that leads to more fruitful results because of the differences in perspective. Internationalism understood as a homogenizing force could only lead to global provincialism and therefore the destruction of the very diversity that allowed fruitful collaboration and exchange in the first place. In the case of the USSR, it backfired for a few reasons, one of which was the failure to impose a manufactured identity onto its conquered peoples in place of individual national and ethnic identities (ethnic identity came roaring back after its collapse). EU federalists are repeating the same mistake. "European" is not a real identity. No one would die to protect "Europe". No one speaks "European". It probably should come as no surprise that many significant figures in the federalist camp have communist pasts or sympathies (Barroso comes to mind; he was a Maoist in his youth). If you want to point to empires, then what you find is that they were ruled by a dominant culture. Sure, the empire may have been multi-ethnic, there may have been a good deal of cultural exchange, and that dominant culture may have included members of various ethnic extractions, but those members of the ruling caste were assimilated into that culture, thus becoming part of a certain "nation". The Romans actually had a process for assimilating people into Roman culture. E.g. if you were Germanic, then you might be sent to Syria as part of the Roman Legion to keep you away from other members of your ethnic group. This would force you to learn Latin and to adopt Roman culture (probably not a bad deal for a Germanic person overall). The ruling caste unifies the empire, but they can only do that by setting the parameters within which the other ethnic groups can operate. This is like liberalism. The idea that liberalism is "culturally neutral" is ridiculous. Liberalism IS a culture. It does not tolerate anything that conflicts with liberalism. All of this is to say that I'm not entirely sure the opposition as framed makes sense. But know that mass migrations tear apart societies and will only lead to catastrophe. The result will be a period of chaos followed by some formation of (potentially new) nations and empires in the wake of the old.