Is nationalism really worth anything real?

What is the nature of nationalism? What's objective and what is subjective part of it?
Very deep, old, and so far under-resolved question continuing to occupy the minds of intellectuals and scientific world. There is a heck of a lot of books and theories made on this theme.

In my humble opinion, It's a sort of religion, psychological phenomenon, the end result of which is a mass identity replacement. Many people do have a 'damaged identity' and the morbid anxieties related thereto. But when those people unify themselves under the flag of some similarities (even if those similarities are completely ephemeral) they feel some kind of relief of the pain, created by the identity vacuum. It like a club of people who were born on Monday and who pride themselves on this fact, ascribing to Monday some 'special' even mystical (religious) qualities.
The anger and potential war (in broad sense: war of words, war of trade, military war in extreme cases) with those belonging to 'other world' is one more way to vent the identity deficit anxiety. As with all self-fulfilling forecasts, the state of war with 'bad others' allegedly threatening their special national belonging, is, in the eyes of nationalists, one more evidence that they are really 'special and different', and, hence, do have a fairly firm identity. All of this doesn't mean, that the degree and activity of nationalism cannot be controlled or 'activated'. There are more and less acute forms, and even 'sleeping nationalism'
Historically, nationalism began really strong and really felt only from the end of 18th - beginning of 19th century. Then the Governments got the real power over their nation-states and learned how to exploit and even create this identity-crisis. Nationalism became a weapon of mass destruction, a perfect masterpiece of demagogy - super-duper socio-psychological medication, allowing Governments to hold power and to gain those ends, which before they could have gained only with the help of the direct force against their own peoples.
So nationalism in the shape we know it now was to a large degree an invention, a lever developed, improved and 'polished' by the political power after the nation states were created and the means of controlled mass communication and broadcasting were developed. So now we more often than not deal with an artificially induced 'boosted' nationalism (in overdrive mode), 'genetically modified nationalism'.
But the fundamental causes of it lie in the identity crisis and the venting of the relevant anxieties and psychological pain.
Do I believe in the reality of such a notion as a cultural nations? Emphatically NOW - in my judgment not only is it a myth but also a very dangerous one. I don't believe in nationality of culture or in 'national cultures', but, on balance, I do belief in cultured nations! Political nations which are for some or other reasons are less or more culturally advanced and capable of further progress - reasons having nothing at all to do with nationality as such. I also believe in cultural barriers the true causes of which having nothing to do with nationality too, as well as in the universal possibility of overcoming those barriers and making initially immiscible and critically antagonistic cultures compatible and able to be parts of one common and larger culture (diverse but not self-contradictory in itself, with a common universal ethical and aesthetic foundation)

Spike in oil price will batter China much more than Western economies

The latest revolutionary events in the Middle East in general and in Libya in particular have already lead to a sharp rise in oil price, raising the bar above the key level of $100 per bbl just in a matter of days. But many analysts are now warning about a further increase which could bring the whole situation to a third oil shock in the event things take a turn for the worse. Some of experts are already anticipating a new astronomical target of $220 per bbl.
In my judgment even so sharp a spike in oil prices in the near future would hit China and some other industrializing economies by far the worst. Of course, $220 per bbl would be no birthday gift for Western developed economies, but it would be an 'apocalypse now' either - nothing even mildly comparable with the oil crisis 1973.
Pundits in their gloomy forecasts are pointing to 1) extra inflationary pressure associated with the corresponding oil price jump and 2) the fragile post crises period of recovery in the West which still continues down a bumpy road, slowly and painfully making its way through a jobless phase. They are also pointing out the fact that Western governments up to now have spent all their special stimulus packages, so there is little one can do in terms of extra emergency measures.
But, I don't think it's all doom and gloom. In the US inflation is still very low due to still low demand - structurally low demand. While a sharp increase in oil prices will draw discontent of the American consumer and rise the costs of the American producer and trader, the overall consumer price hike will be much less than many would expect. The problems of Western economies are structural in character including the tenacious joblessness and sluggish demand. On the other hand productivity continues to rise despite already very high oil prices and rather sharp dynamics of their growth in the recent past in the recent past. Oil does seem to take a very small part of the added value created in the wealthy economies of the West now.
On the other hand every cloud has a silver lining: in case of a major oil price spike, the positive processes of transition to a greener, less oil-dependent economy due to investment in new technology in the West will gain extra momentum and urgency. The world is close to the energy revolution as it is, and any lack of urgency and political will here is going to be eliminated by another oil crisis. Additional redistribution of cash flow into the alternative energy sources industry would come in handy indeed in case of oil crisis.

On the other hand China have already started testing long term sustainability of its industrialization model. Before the Middle East events inflation in China had already reached rather dangerous levels and continue to rise. The part of oil and other raw materials expenses in the creation of the Chinese GDP is already huge and the pain threshold is not so very far. I am sure, that the biggest danger that potential 'oil shock' presents to China, whose export dependent, heavily subsidized and energy extremely ineffective economy would be dealt a hefty blow and lose much of its competitiveness. Consumer demand in China also depends incomparably more on the price oil and other raw materials than that of Western economies.
For China an oil shock would be a real test and a real shock. How China will be able to handle it remains to be seen.
And last but not least, quite contrary to what many sages like to foretell, I am sure, that an economic crisis in China would do much more good than harm for the global economy in general and for the Western economies in particular in that it would make the long awaited and much talked-about 'rebalancing' of trade, monetary and investment unbalances, much closer and realer. Contrary to what is thought by many experts I am sure, that at this point quasi-market China does more damage than good to the developed economies and to the whole global economy in general, in effect parasitically "stealing" from other really market economies growth (including her closest neighbors).
Having said that, I still think that the current jump in oil price is more a reflection of speculators' grip on commodities market and their wish to bull and capitalize on the moment, than of real fundamental problems of an inadequate supply.

The West should have reacted much earlier and stronger to Lybia events

The Western community MUST do more, not just express their 'concern' or 'amaze', or to say, like Obama did, how 'indecent' it is to kill civil population on mass (such a naughty boy this Cadafi). Freeze freeze freeze any assets of the regime bloody kleptocrats and at least in the strongest terms possible give give and give moral promises all the democratic forces who at the expense of their lives now try to dethrone the bloody usurpers. They must be sure that the West will help them at least after the overturn of the regime in terms of establishing new and fundamentally better relationship. Moral support from the outside world is now the most important thing, because it gives an additional amount of confidence to the liberators. The West at the first signs of violence should have taken the hardest position possible and express its attitude and support for democratic forces in Libya (...as well as in other Middle East countries for that matter) in the strongest terms possible, and it's shame that Obama pronounced any words only a weak after the start of the events.
All in all the West in general and the US in particular have demonstrated rather lukewarm support and taken a unacceptably soft and formal position. Nothing surprising, however, if one remembers that the US to the this day for the sake of Israel and themselves have not only tolerated but actually supported a whole bunch of dictators in the Middle East - the way things continued to stand even when any objective necessity for such support expired. As ever the West put its political interests and dubious friendship far above the much touted fundamental values of democracy - so much so that it actually put a break on the natural democratization processes in the Middle East (e.d. there are reasonable grounds to suspect that democracy in the Middle East would have advanced much further up to date but for the actual policy of the US in this region). One more landmark in the continued process of ideological discrediting of the West in the recent history. One more piece of evidence for developing countries to suspect that in reality democracies are not interested in promoting democracy in the rest of the world at all... Is it not time for the Western Powers at last to learn their lessons?! Hey, there's no Cold War any more and it's all long over with all the excuses belonging to it. The systematic continuous loss of principles and credibility of the West (in exchange of oil or gas or benefits of trade and corporate business) has already did a hardly estimable damage to the democratic countries.

A couple of words about the US wars in Vietnam and Korea

Unfortunately there are still many Americans who prefer talking about Vietnam war in terms of counter-factual history and in terms of 'ifs and woulds' - 'if we won then this and that then we would...'. Korean war still continues to be used as a kind of positive example and justification of other things, which otherwise look ugly, feel ugly, sound ugly... because they are ugly.
Among the recent typical questions on this topic I tried to reply to was the following: 'If we had won the Vietnam war, do you think Vietnam would be like South Korea? In other words...very developed, technologically advanced, awesome, etc? Such a shame the North was so brainwashed, and such a shame we were so afraid of communism'
Here I considered it my duty to publish my answer to this and many other similar questions (or conditional assumptions):
In other words, would there be two Vietnams, one of which would live more or less well and free, and in another one people would die in their millions like in North Korea because of starvation and state repressions and whose militarism - like that of North Korea - latter would strike terror into all other countries and peoples in the region sapping their resources up to this day? Interesting question.
I would say no, because Vietnamese type of civil was unlike Korean to my mind is not winnable in full. Korean war was a political war organized "from top" and controlled from center by 'official' political forces. In this respect it was not truly 'civil', rather too governments tried to carve up the country and nation for a number of reasons. But in case of Vietnam, at some stage the war became truly civil in the sense that it was organized 'from bottom', external American forces and their presence became absolutely illegitimate in the eyes of a critically huge proportion of population, and the practical methods the US allowed itself to use only too well served the purpose shifting the war irreversibly from ideological plane (in which it was wrongly represented in the American media) into nationalistic plane - one nation invades another and in reality fights with its people. The war was unwinnable in ideological and political sense.
Even if one assumes that some kind of purely military 'magic' success could allow the US to recapture the whole territory and even formally hand over a sort of political control to some kind of Vietnamese government, the war wouldn't have stopped and this political control would have existed more on paper than in reality. The war would have gone to a kind of smoldering phase, and returned in its full bloody strength to a full fledged state just as American military presence had been wound down.
There's no if, cos this war at a very early stage was lost both ideologically and politically. Power is not everything.
About South Korea: in place of many Americans I wouldn't be too much proud of this achievement. While fully recognizing the well-being of S Korea, it is worth remembering that the relative success of this half of the nation has been built on the bones and flesh of millions upon millions upon millions of killed people of the other half of the nation. The problem is still there, and now the whole region is a victim of Korean military and nuclear blackmail. America is also negatively affected. Communist totalitarian regimes could be veeery different in terms of their detrimental effect. Cuba is one thing, and North Korea absolutely another story. But it was the war and the division of the nation that would have predetermined North Korean regime as being in future the bloodiest and most dangerous on earth as well as most isolated and stable among all others much softer communist autocracies. Also let's not forget those millions of lives that were claimed by the Korean war, supported actively on the Western side by the US. The memory of this played and continues to play in the hand of Korean regime.
I know Americans like to claim rewards for their Korean involvement but at the same time they are not that much willing to recognize their responsibility for another 'gift' they at least partially were involved in making to the Korean people and the rest of the world - North Korea.
This again raises the question about the methods and successes of the US in the Cold War, which, to be frank, in reality was not so much about communism against capitalism, as about Russian militaristic and political aggression and 'influence' (in the guise of communism). Unfortunately it was Russia who partially taught America her ugly methods and her intrinsic cruel cynicism - not the other way around. Russia remained what she has always been - the land of terror, but the US became much more 'Russian' in its ways, habits and judgments, and this is, I think, a true shame. Shame for a great nation which before the end of World War II historically had been a very wise and pacifist nation, none the weaker for its pacifism. A nation which could produce such intellectual and political giants like Franco Delano Roosevelt, a nation that because of the Cold War mentality - ends justify the means - was in the end intellectually reduced to such a condition, that would become possible to elect people like Bush and Chaney. That's a shame, and this is a mental legacy of all those wars in the past. I could only imagine what would the late Roosevelt, or other American intellectual politicians of the past for that matter have said about all these Cold War mental transformations of the US. That's a shame. Trade blockade of the minuscule and non-dangerous nation of Cuba - that's a shame! And the last two wars, which are direct result of 'Cold War mental national degradation' - that's a shame. When a former intellectual giant behaves like a petty militaristic dwarf - that's a shame!
Let there be no mistake and misunderstanding, I believe in America and I am sure that the new generations of American people and politicians are already starting to 'recover' this great nation back on the normal trajectory - pacifist intellectuals of the 21th century like Obama. But it is precisely my worries and my wish of good to this country that forces me to criticize and deplore its inordinate mistakes and some times criminal mistakes of the second part of the 20th century and the first decade of  the new one. Of course the context of the Cold War helps us to understand many of those mistakes, but not justify.
I am myself Canadian but I love the US and what is more I believe in its good-protecting and good-creating potential, but the US will not be able to move forward into the 21th century if American people won't learn to recognize the national mistakes. And it's difficult, very difficult to recognize national historical mistakes bordering on crimes against your own and other peoples. It's very difficult to recognize that the state sent to death tens of thousands of American girls and boys to death under the grandiose and blissful slogans of help to the nations that would actually have been ravaged or even split as a result of those messianic lies. Moreover, all of what I say here, now is increasingly recognized by American top politicians themselves. Let's deal with the history honestly, draw the lessons, get wise again, and start moving mentally and culturally into the new century, into the century of peace and Enlightenment, not of war and cheap militaristic Messianic. Into the age of Christian values according to Christ and not according to Bush, Islamic values according to Muhammad and not according to Bin Laden, etc. Let's grow up, cos the mental and political health of America is a critical condition for the piece in the whole world.

About nationalism

What is nationalism? What is the nature of nationalism? What's objective and what is subjective part of it?
Very deep, old, and so far under-resolved question continuing to occupy the minds of intellectuals and scientific world. There is a heck of a lot of books and theories made on this theme.

In my humble opinion, It's a sort of religion, psychological phenomenon, the end result of which is a mass identity replacement. Many people do have a 'damaged identity' and the morbid anxieties related thereto. But when those people unify themselves under the flag of some similarities (even if those similarities are completely ephemeral or trivial) they feel some kind of relief of the pain, created before by the identity vacuum. It is like a club of people who were born on Monday and who pride themselves on this fact, ascribing to Monday some 'special' even mystical (religious) qualities.
The anger and potential war (in broad sense: war of words, war of trade, military war in extreme cases) with those belonging to 'other world' is one more major way of venting the identity deficit anxiety. As with all self-fulfilling forecasts, the state of war with 'bad others' allegedly threatening their special national belonging, is, in the eyes of nationalists, one more evidence that they are really 'special and different', and, hence, do have a fairly firm identity.
All of this doesn't mean, that the degree and activity of nationalism cannot be controlled or 'activated'. There are more and less acute forms, and even, what could be called 'sleeping  or latent nationalism'
Historically, nationalism began really strong and really felt in earnest only from the end of 18th - beginning of 19th century. Then the Governments got the real power over their nation-states and learned how to exploit and even create this identity-crisis. The very term 'nation-state' was invented by European politicians as demagogic conception  (let many pundits disagree with me on this one) to legitimize their political power sharing and power holding over multitudes of people. Nationalism became an ideological weapon of mass destruction, a perfect masterpiece of demagogy - super-duper socio-psychological medication, allowing Governments to hold power and to gain those ends, which before they could have gained only with the help of the direct force against their own peoples. Of course that's not to say that they (politicians in power) themselves did not get sucked in the self-induced ideological whirlpool of nationalism: of course it was flattering and pleasant for their ego to 'realize' that they were kind of heroes and good helpers who were 'kindly asked' by their respective 'nations' to rule over them, as if those nation were single subjects with a single will. Of course this self-reflection was 'just what the doctor ordered' for those powerful people in authority - such conception would help even the most hard-headed politicians, sending thousands upon thousands of people to war and death, to sleep tight and well (though even before those ruling elites had not suffered too much from a bad sleep). Needless to say, this concept of state-nation was 'nationally relativistic' and politically conveniently split the moral (what is bad in general could be good if France or Germany needs it; what is bad for England and her people could be good and ethically justified for Russia etc - regional fragmented moral, that serves not the universal ideals of the Enlightenment, but 'nations' and in practice the political elites of those 'nations')
So nationalism in the shape we know it now was to a large degree an invention, a lever developed, improved and 'polished' by the political power after the so called nation-states were created and the means of controlled mass communication and broadcasting were developed. So now we more often than not deal with an artificially induced 'boosted' nationalism (in overdrive mode), 'genetically modified nationalism'.
But the fundamental causes of it lie in the identity crisis and the venting of the relevant anxieties and psychological pain.

A few words about the EU: good idea, but in reality a big fraud

Long ago. Looong ago it already started look like a very bad, and, to be honest, politically and economically unsustainable idea. But for the general public it began to be increasingly evident 1) politically when the so called Constitution (later to be replaced with Lisbon treaty) was failed several times 2) economically when the specter of communism in its modernized guise again started haunting Europe: Germany and some other countries produced and paid, Greece, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Ireland etc just borrowed and consumed.
The problem is that EU, in the form it is now, is a kind of Union of European governments, not of European Nations, and it's not controlled by peoples, that's a sad reality that goes fundamentally against the political tradition and self-consciousness of the nations 'misunited' under the EU flag. In practice it is a purely bureaucratic structure, and maybe it would be OK IF it would not be sold at the same time as a kind of 'true product' of the total unification of peoples, which could be possible only and only under the condition of true democratic control. It is just a club of the governments that use this machinery rather often to avoid control on the part of their respective nations. So not only is this 'Federation' undemocratic, but also it makes less democratic in practice those nations included in this sweet project.
Economical problems partly emanate from the political ones, cos you cannot make a unified currency zone (eurozone) without making a unified fiscal zone. But the latter, obviously cannot be done without a serious 'blurring' of the sovereignty of the participating states, that's, without some kind of tectonic political merger with the formation of some kind of united states of Europe. From the very first it was obvious for many many critics that you cannot essentially deprive countries of their right to print its own currency, giving them instead the right to borrow without restriction the new common currency, but at the same time allow them to control their budget totally on their own. You don't have to be Einstein to understand that every Government in those poor countries will just borrow as much money as it wants just to stay in power its 4 or 8 years, shifting the burden to the next people.
Change the EU in a better way and then it might be worth for other nations to be part of it

Republicans are suffering the deepest ideological crisis ever

I think it is because the Conservative party is now suffering a deepest ideological crisis as a whole. Some kind of powerful degeneration of the party and their ideological foundations and political self-awareness occurred.
They in essence cannot now offer anything really fundamentally different from what they actively exploited in the last century. They has become kind of ideologically exhausted and turned into a kind of political Dinosaurs the best embodiment of which are such figures like McCain and many others - people from the 20th century and sometimes from the 19th. The best they could think of in this situation is to wrap the old content with the expiry date long gone in a kind of renewed wrapper: and the result was the appearing of plastic dummies like Sara Palin and some others. From the age of the Cold War they - Republicans - still need some kind of war as a pivotal driver and the main justification of their existence in power (not necessarily a military war - just a war of words, a war of measures and ideas): the war with some enemy that wants to deprive the US of its values of its air, water, good traditional family, peace, security etc etc. In this old good scenario they wouldn't have to create any new values, they would just defend the old ones and you would thank and praise them for performing this heroic task.
But the problem is that now comes an age when war is not essential like it was, an age when politicians must be ready to accept new realities and sometimes review some old values. But Republicans just turned out to be absolutely unprepared to generate something new. So there we are: they just mechanically continue to do what the did in the past: search for what could be categorized as bad and dangerous and make an impression of actively defending you against those evils (be it taxes, or Wikileaks, or abortion, masturbation etc etc etc), even if those evils sometimes were unarguably created by themselves (like crisis).
Yes before recent it worked ok and the 9/11 terrorist attacks played into the hands of the Republicans, giving their ideology (or rather lack of it) an extension - a new enemy to fight with, and, there they were needed again. But all too soon people understood that wars in the old fashion breed terrorists faster than kill them, and that a new vision and study of this problem is vital to really decrease the influence and reduce the number of terrorists. But new vision and new studies and approaches require creative work, not heroic slogans or swinging your fists. And creative work is not something Republicans happened to be ready for (not only in fight against terrorism but on all fronts, including international relations, economy etc). So the Party kind of 'degenerated' because of its inability to offer something fundamentally new.
The same goes for economic policy. Republicans have always supported big corporations and tax-cuts for them under the guise of supporting free market and business in general - that's a core part of their ideology of promoting free capitalism. As a result of these warm relationship 1) those big corporations lobby republicans with... of course money and 2) many former and present reach businessmen go to republican party if they decide to go to politics. That's it. Republicans loved big reach corporations (banks, oil companies etc) which in turn love republicans: that was part of their ideology; help the reach, make themselves reach too and then the usual people may have something from all of this too. In this sense they too positioned themselves as defenders of traditional values of free market and entrepreneurship against 'enemy' - all those who ostensibly what to steal those values.
But now, especially because of the crisis, it has been becoming increasingly clear that helping big corporate giants with low taxes has NOTHING to do whatsoever with either support of free market of with support of small and middle-sized business, which are the main generator of jobs and economic development.
No enemy - that's the problem. No body around to blame and to protect us against in order to sell us our air and water in the political sense (we couldn't have these too if it were not for Reps). You just cannot be conservative in the 21th century, because the increasing pace of development of this world is not compatible with 'conservatism' in the shape it was viable in the last century. The whole ideological basis, or, to be more accurate, and illusion thereof, has just fell at the seams