What is the relationship between American nationalism and foreign policy? How
has this relationship changed over time, and what is its implication for grand strategy in
an era of American primacy? Many argue that nationalism, or its uniquely American
manifestation of “exceptionalism,” is often responsible for aggressive or revisionist turns
in a state’s foreign policy, a claim that appears to be particularly relevant in
understanding the Bush administration’s prosecution of the war on terrorism and its post-
September 11
th
grand strategy. Anatol Lieven, for example, contends that the United
States can currently be understood as a “European state that has avoided the catastrophes
nationalism brought upon Europe in the twentieth century, and whose nationalism
therefore retains some of the power, intensity, bellicosity, and self-absorption that
European nationalisms have had kicked out of them by history.”
1
Especially following
September 11
th
, according to this line of argument, the US has pursued a divisive,
nationalist-driven agenda, marginalizing the US from its post-nationalist, post-historical
allies and magnifying international distrust. Richard Falk writes that “what is certain, and
scary, is the new approach to the use of international force beneath the banner of
counterterrorism and in the domestic climate of fervent nationalism that has existed since
September 11.”
2
According to this view, the Bush administration, representing a kind of
“nationalist apotheosis,” domestically presides over a reactionary and backward political
coalition, and internationally produces an “increasingly aggressive and ideological”
1
Anatol Lieven, “In the Mirror of Europe: The Perils of American Nationalism,” Current History, vol. 103,
Number 677 (March 2004), p.99.
2
Richard Falk, “The New Bush Doctrine,” The Nation, July 15, 2002.
Convention