On the Importance of Countries

Imagine a tourist, someone whose hobbies include ‘traveling.’ She says: “I want to visit 50 countries.” “How many countries have you visited?” This talk implies visiting El Salvador or Andorra la Vella is the same as visiting Japan or Russia. To this kind of tourist, “country” denotes something sacred as well as political. One may be tempted to ask: “what if that country you visited ceases to be? Will you have to scramble to visit another country to make up for the lost time?” Or “what if that destination you visited which was initially just part of the same country you already visited became part of a new country, will you consider this a windfall and yourself a more accomplished traveler without needing to go on a trip?”

“Country” is important to some people. How important is it? We should start with an understanding of what a country is. Oxford dictionary defines “country” as “a nation with its own government, occupying a particular territory.” This is not very helpful as now we have to delve into the question of “nation.”

Allow yours truly to give this a shot: A country is an independent political entity with a defined land area and a population. What do I mean by “defined?” That is a compromise between the country itself and those outside of the country whose opinions matter. A country has neighbors who have to acknowledge the rights of the country to exclude others in order for the country to exist. But the question of country formation is a topic for another time. Our excited traveler who wants to check 50 “countries” off her travel log may not care so much about these definitions.

Countries serve an important purpose. The ones who form and maintain a country (let’s call them “countrymen” from now on) have interests they need to secure from those inside and outside of the country. These interests of the countryman include the desire to protect his person, property, and family from outsiders and insiders. The countrymen give the country and its institutions a sort of monopoly on violence and a duty to adjudicate disputes in protecting the countryman’s interests.

But how important is it for the countryman to be in one particular country or another? It is of some importance. The countryman desires a country that properly secures the countryman’s interests. The countryman prefers a functional country to a dysfunctional country. The countryman prefers a country that actually serves his interests and doesn’t favor the interests of some other class to his detriment. One country may better promote the countryman’s culture, and the countryman is more comfortable practicing his own culture. But what if a countryman can choose the administration of more than one different countries that would essentially function the same way and equally promote the countryman’s interests?

There are other reasons a countryman prefers the rule of one country over another. Some of these reasons could be sentimental. The countryman’s ancestors founded the country’s institutions. Those ancestors bled to place the borders of the country where they are, they at times bled for the country’s very existence. The countryman may be honor-bound to ensure that this country does not falter while he is at the helm. The shame of being alive and capable while his great country disintegrated would be too great to bear.

When is a country worth dying for? A countryman may face ruin if his country is destroyed by some threatening force. His person, property, and family may be at stake. But in this case, the goal of preserving those interests is accomplished by risking his life for his country. What if those interests can be separated from the existence of his country?

There are other concerns besides “country” and the countryman’s immediate interests (person, property, family). Countries belong to larger cultural or civilizational groups. When the Garibaldians launched their expedition to unite Italy in 1860, they were met with the Neapolitan forces that pitched battle, suffered some thousands of deaths, before the country disintegrated and merged with the new Italian Kingdom. The Two Sicilies surely had more men and women who could have given their lives to defend their country, what happened? This writer will hazard a guess: the countrymen assessed that the Two Sicilies were not worth dying for. The Kingdom of Italy could secure their interests as well or better than the Two Sicilies, and the promoted cultures of the new Italian Kingdom were close enough to their way of life. And as it turned out, there was no significant attempt to restore an independent Naples or Sicily since the Garibaldians extinguished the entity.

The reader may protest that this is a poor example. The Two Sicilies were merely the latest attempt in a long series of attempts by foreign powers: most notably the Eastern Roman Empire, the Normans, and the Spanish, to subjugate Southern Italy. It was an inorganic entity with no staying power on its own. Then consider the long-lived “Saxony” that existed in eastern present-day Germany. This entity, first an electorate and then a kingdom, existed from 1356 to 1871 as an independent nation, until it first joined the North German Confederation as an autonomous entity and then was abolished in 1918. There was no heroic last stand of the Saxon in the 19th or 20th century to save his nation.

Consider that your country’s existence is at risk. You have the opportunity to die in order to decrease the existential threat to your country. Do you need further inquiry? Are you a coward for even asking for more context and wanting to weigh alternatives?

What is the level of the tragedy where one country, perhaps thought up in the 19th century, disappears. Perhaps this country was annexed by a larger neighbor. Perhaps its people simply vanished through emigration and low birth rates.

And what is the level of the tragedy where an entire people vanishes. Their language, and all reasonably close languages, vanish. Perhaps the people vanished through demographic phenomena or the people became unrecognizable after being absorbed into a new cultural sphere.

It seems questionable to resign the fate of your people to a particular political entity. You might be selfless, but does your country’s struggle end with your death? How many more would have to die to secure the continued existence of your country? To sacrifice the essence of your people, their demographic health, for the sake of a political entity seems monstrous. It’s not unreasonable to ask whether the sacrifice of the Paraguayans was ultimately worth achieving their result. Between 60 and 70% of Paraguay’s population perished in the 1860s war of the triple alliance, leaving a woman to man ratio of 1 to 4. Those dead Paraguayans could have increased manyfold in the 19th and 20th centuries, they could have created art, innovation, lived happy lives, etc. Entire families going back generations were wiped out. They died so that Paraguay might exist, despite the mistakes of its leadership.

How significant is the continued existence of Paraguay? What is the loss to the Paraguayans and to others if Paraguay remained partitioned between Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina? Those living in Uruguay and Argentina would belong to a country that speaks their own language - Spanish. Those living in Brazil would live in a country that administrates in a language with a high degree of mutual intelligibility with Spanish - Portuguese. Today Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay are each far wealthier than Paraguay.

What else besides country could matter? Countries forms spheres of influence, cultural spheres, civilizations, etc. A countryman might derive meaning from his religion, his clan, his ethnicity, some pan-identity, etc. Perhaps he follows an ideology that assigns little meaning to countries.

President JFK famously “ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.” As noble as this sounds, a countryman would be hard pressed, given his considerations, to accept this as an absolute. A time may come when his country has outlived its usefulness to the countryman. Like his ancestors had done on occasion, he may be better served forming a new entity, greater or smaller than his current country.

A countryman may have to swallow his pride and join a larger country where the predominant culture is somewhat different from his own. He could cope by understanding that cultures change with time regardless, that his own people may have a turn in administering the new country in time if they play along. Instead of risking the annihilation of so many of his kin he may use their strength to negotiate a more favorable position in the greater country. Perhaps this merger is necessary in order to protect the countryman’s pan-identity from a larger threat.

Conversely, a countryman may have to let go of a larger country with a glorious history in order to salvage what he can and form a smaller country. Perhaps this larger country once served his interests but has now become hostile to those interests. The countryman could cope by understanding that countries come and go, his people may rise to significance in time once again.

How important is a country? It is clearly important, but it is not an end in and of itself. It is a vessel for pursuing other ends.

As the Israel-Hamas ceasefire ends, the battle for the west begins again

For the past several days a negotiated ceasefire has put a pause on the kinetic action between Israeli forces and Hamas militants in the Northern sectors of Gaza City. Prior to this arrangement, IDF units have spent the last three weeks systematically encroached into the urban sprawl, utilizing uncontested control of the air and advanced fires to dismantle Hamas fighting positions, or any building which could be used as such, as mechanized elements continue a slow crawl deep into the strip. Yet, in no way does this ceasefire offer a promise of cessation. Each day of temporary relief, which Hamas is using to regroup and bolster elements in the South, is bought by the release of a quickly dwindling supply of Israeli hostages carried off in the October 7th attacks. Within a timeframe measured in days Hamas will run out of viable tokens and Israeli patience will wane. A ceasefire might be observed, but the war is far from over.

Soon, headlines will break with news that headlines: “Hamas Renews Attacks on Israeli Forces, Israel responds with air strikes!”

For the Israelis, this resumption of hostilities is straight forward - they will continue the conflict until they extend operational control over the entirely of the Gaza Strip and establish a provisional authority for oversight, whose longevity might well be longer than they openly admit. Likewise, for Hamas, there is little doubt what the coming weeks will bring. The infant intifada will continue until the fighting will of the Palestinian militancy is broken, or else it is rendered functionally inoperable, outside of sporadic insurgent attacks. From the perspective of a military analyst playing with units on a map, there is no doubt in how this conflict will unfold, or end.

The true war being waged is not between RPGs and Tanks, nor Palestinian and Israeli flags, or even divergent faith. It is a war for the compassion of the world. When the last meaningful hostage is handed over and the bullets start flying again, they will not be fired to decide who is the military victor, the gravestones of Hamas fighters being already carved, but to force an answer from the international community: who is the righteous State.

For Hamas, their hopes have already been greatly diminished. Provoked by Saudi-Israeli accords, and an increasing Arab sense of irritation over their wayward Palestinian brothers, the October 7th massacres were a desperate attempt to regalvanize the Islamic world against Israel. The nature of the attack guaranteed an immediately and ruthless response from Israel, spurred on by an emotional West. Hamas played its full hand, hoping that the Islamic world would find itself likewise inflamed, perhaps even leading to another Arab War which would renew anti-Israeli sentiments for the next thirty years. That fervor has not come. Hezbollah wages a soft conflict, refusing to commit beyond rockets and skirmishing. The remainder of the belligerent gang is either missing or dismissive - Iraq and Libya are defunct, Syria holds itself together by a string, Iran rattles sabers but will do nothing other than wire money, and the Arab powers only offer diplomatic condolences, decrying Israeli actions while planning to do little about them. Though accords have been temporarily disrupted, Hamas has little hope that an Islamic alliance will come to their aid.

Yet, there is a second front in the war for the international mind. It is not one which promises Hamas a military savior, but one which is aimed at a longer conflict - that against the continued existence of the Israeli State. In this aim, Hamas must win a war for the most significant factor of all: the moral sentiments of the West. Palestine must gain the favor of the western mind. In doing so, they might divorce Israel from its European and American backers, isolating it into a war of unsupported attrition that levels the playing field. It is an agenda that will not turn back the tanks currently sitting deep in Gaza City, but one which offers some promise of an eventual victory.

Their argument is one of persecution - a story of an innocent people thrown from their land and subjected to the untrustworthy subjugation of the Zionist Jew. Photos of dust coated children flood media in the wake of every Israeli air strike. Narratives of hospitals being leveled and school houses being bulldozed stir up the passions of sympathetic watchers in the West. The Palestinian militant claims himself a freedom fighter, a martyr for a righteous cause, a man defending his family and his home. It is an strategy that is more effective than tunnels and IEDs. On college campuses across the United States, progressive students gather with tears in their eyes for the Palestinian people. Sympathetic politicians make a case for Palestinian favoritism in Congress and the White House is partially paralyzed by indecision. Immigrants and sympathetic foreigners take to the streets in order to rally for the Palestinian cause, if not in support of Hamas, against Israel all the same. Corporations walk a steady line, a certain departure from the past, preaching a 'love all' message that is a tacit awknowledgment of Palestinian struggle. Paradoxically, even some on the far right strum up a confused support for the Palestianian people, driven more by a disdain for Isreali politics than a love for an Islamic militancy. Thirty years ago none of these voices would be heard.

Israel, in likewise but opposed fashion, wages the same struggle. They brand themselves the civilized choice, a lone island which resists against an onslaught of senseless hatred. Conflicting headlines scroll across Western media, plastered right alongside those celebrated by Hamas, retelling vividly decribed accounts of rape, massacre, and beheaded children. The IDF works tirelessly to demonstrate Hamas as a disingenous militancy, more Al Qaida than Minuteman, utilizing hospitals and pre-schools as operating bases with no regard for their own people. In the West, this understanding largely remains the status quo. Certainly in the establishment sectors long stanging relationships between Israel and the Western governments that enabled its existence remain strong. Evangelicals hold the Judeo-Christian identity close to their hearts, seeing the Isreali people as adjacent to their own. For the most part, the political leadership is aligned, with bipartisan calls for Isreali aid sounding immediately after the October 7th attacks.

As the ceasefire ends, the western choice between these two actors once again pushes itself to the forefront of political discourse, leaving little room to remain in trepid doubt. For the timebeing, Isreal remains safely assured of its funding and military assistance, being so favorably entrenched in the establishment systems. Yet, in a larger frame, the stability of pro-Isreali sentiment is less assured. For many common Americans, the drowning exposure to both narratives through an indecisive media has opened questions about where their sentiments lie. For some, this boils down to a simple matter of ethnic or religious association, but for the unaffiliated Westerner it is primarily a moral question - which side can be assesed as the righteous State when both claim to be the benevolent actor. The difficult reality, which the political element refuses to recognize but the well intending citizen must, is that both narratives exist in a grey. The storied history of Isreali-Palestianian difficulties cannot be summarized in an article, or a single book, but it is safe to suffice that the reality of long-stranding ethnic struggle is one of half-truths and misshapen narratives. Neither side is wholly right, nor their opposition wholly evil, and the headlines of bombed hospitals and beheaded preschoolers are equal lies. The most imperative consideration is that the West is not dragged into a straining conflict on the opposite side of the globe under false pretenses of brotherhood and emotion, regardless of which brothers and the indistinguishable dead being mourned.

That is not to advocate a policy of apathy, the most abhorrent of politics. It isn’t that the Westerner should not care about the conflict, but rather that he must be careful to consider this outbreak in the context of Western interests. For the establishment actor, this is no consideration - the interest of Israel are the interests of the West, the Jewish state being our ‘greatest ally’ in the region. Yet, fair alliances are built on mutual benefit, not historic responsibility, and the antagonization that Israel presents to the region regularly inflames Arab and Islamic distaste for their Western backers. In return, Israel offers little materially, though they reflect principles that are worthy of praise: strong nationalism, cultural emphasis, sovereign borders, and a reverence for homogeneity. Still, while we might condone these notions in the theoretical, the sovereign border that Israel fortifies is not our own and we are not welcome to join their people, unless we share the same blood. If the western conservative wishes to celebrate these fundamentals, they would be better served to look inward, to borders and peoples that are in desperate need of the same support.

However, a careful approach to Israeli support must not be misconstrued for an outlook that artificially stunts Israeli dominance, or certainly one that promotes a Hamas victory. The Palestinians, like many of their unencumbered neighbors, have failed to produce anything that approaches civilizational excellence. To this day, Gaza operates under complete reliance of Israeli power, water, and food, the near the totality of the aid they are freely given is squandered on roughshod, and ineffective, militancy. Hamas and the associated Islamic groupings practice savage violence, perpetrating attacks that invalidate their just war claims under the guise of necessity and religious justification. If we are to question the validity of ‘Judeo-Christian’ terminology, we must certainly distance ourselves from support of any Islamic Fundamentalism which lies strict opposed.

Consequently, the western interest should be one purely committed to containment. There exist a single genuinely ‘bad’ outcome - the uncontrolled spread of the this conflict across the region which would dismantle bilateral relationships with critical gulf states and potentially escalate a major conflict with a nuclear adjacent Iran who, unlike Palestinian militias, poses a direct threat to the western safety and integrity. Power projection by the U.S. military might help to ease hands off holsters, but the provision of direct military aid to Israel conflictingly escalates the situation. There exists no legitimate military benefit, nor meaningful ‘alliance’, which warrants the dissemination of billions of western dollars in missiles and bullets. This act serves solely to appease a political demand at the risk of promoting the very thing we should seek to avoid across an inflamed Middle East. But if the west is to ‘not get involved’ then they should not get involved. The Israeli State operates under no obligation to allow a militant contingency to exist on its border which explicitly promotes its ethnic and racial destruction, just as any western nation would not be expected to tolerate the same. Hamas has, time and time again, elected to reject more than favorable terms for coexistence - terms that might have demanded they operated under the purview of an Israeli system, but such are the terms that a losing side must endure. Endure these Hamas has not. They have chosen the alternate route that is always open, to defy defeat by force of arms, and Israel being a sovereign state has a right to respond in kind.

The saying goes ‘live by the sword, die by the sword’ and just as Hamas has a moral right to chose that life, Israel has the moral right to give them that death. It is the west that must not overstep, either by handing Israel the sword by which to deliver the blow, or by stopping a well deserved thrust.