According to the regnant wisdom among academics and American and West European elites, nationalism is a fundamentally illiberal and exclusionary force; by contrast, the identities of various minorities are held sacrosanct. The result of these twinned ideas, argues Andrew Michta, is a disintegration of national and social cohesion that has contributed to the growing sense of political crisis in the West:

The hypothesis that institutions ultimately trump culture has over the past quarter-century morphed into an article of faith, alongside the fervently held belief that nationalism and democratic politics are at their core fundamentally incompatible. The decades-long assault on the very idea of national identity steeped in a shared culture and defined by a commitment to the preservation of the nation has left Western leadership frequently unable to articulate the fundamentals that bind us and that we thus must be prepared to defend. The deepening fight over the right of the central government to control the national border—which is at the core of the Western idea of the nation-state—is emblematic of this situation.

The deconstruction of the nation-state across the West has had consequences beyond the national security of individual states. It has directly diminished the durability of the liberal world order, which not so long ago was heralded as the zenith of our globalized future. Though its fundaments are still in place, the era of the post-cold war triumph of liberal internationalism is more than a decade behind us. The liberal international order cannot function without strong national communities acting as the baselines for democratic government. Regrettably, in the last half-century we have witnessed the gradual unraveling of the cultural foundations of this compact—the idea of the nation as an overarching identifier linking peoples across space and time.

Today, in addition to the shifting global power equation and surging transnational threats, a key factor in the deteriorating security of the collective West is our inability to appreciate the vital importance of the nation-state to the security of a self-governing people. National identity, national culture and history, and the sense of belonging to a distinct community are not antithetical to the notion of an interdependent international system. On the contrary, when bereft of the core building blocks of consolidated nation-states, the system will grow less stable with each passing year.

“Make no mistake,” said President Biden after the news broke of the murder of six hostages in Gaza, “Hamas leaders will pay for these crimes.” While this sentiment is correct, especially given that an American citizen was among the dead, the White House has thus far shown little inclination to act upon it. The editors of National Review remark:

Hamas’s execution of [Hersh Goldberg-Polin] should not be treated as merely an issue of concern for Israel but as a brazen act against the United States. It would send a terrible signal if the response from the Biden-Harris administration were to move closer to Hamas’s position in cease-fire negotiations. Instead, Biden must follow through on his declaration that Hamas will pay.

Richard Goldberg lays out ten steps the U.S. can take, none of which involve military action. Among them:

The Department of Justice should move forward with indictments of known individuals and groups in the United States providing material support to Hamas and those associated with Hamas, domestically and abroad. The Departments of the Treasury and State should also target Hamas’s support network of terrorist entities in and out of the Gaza Strip. . . . Palestinian organizations that provide material support to Hamas and coordinate attacks with them should be held accountable for their actions. Hamas networks in foreign countries, including South Africa, should be targeted with sanctions as well.

Pressure on Qatar should include threats to remove Qatar’s status as a major non-NATO ally; move Al Udeid air-base assets; impose sanctions on Qatari officials, instrumentalities, and assets; and impose sanctions on Qatar’s Al-Jazeera media network. Qatar should be compelled to close all Hamas offices and operations, freeze and turn over to the United States all Hamas-connected assets, and turn over to the United States or Israel all Hamas officials who remain in the country.