Nationality is given as a possibility that under certain conditions and circumstances is transformed into self-consciousness, and in order to actualize this possibility, it must rely on “a certain previously given sense of culture, on a certain common heritage, that is, in fact on a certain primordialist infrastructure from which, if circumstances so require, the necessary signs and symbols, political practice and ethnic feelings can be drawn.
Although nationalism and its goal – a nation in a sovereign nation-state – are truly modern phenomena, it cannot be said that the proponents of nationalism ‘invented’ the entire construction, but rather that they largely composed it from elements of historical tradition, thus returning to the history of those forms of government in which nationalism developed.
What about the nation and the state in the age of globalization? Globalization has led to the acceleration of history, and traditional social structures have been destroyed. The peasantry, which was the basis of demography and economy, is declining and collapsing, almost dramatically. That alone is enough to say that the world we knew has disappeared. Cities are not what they used to be, the way of life, communication and interests are different in today's hypercities. The former city, the polis, is not the same as today's megalopolis. Metropolises of millions are no longer places where knowledge and spiritual experiences are exchanged, but places where individuals are swallowed up and disappear unnoticed.
What is the future of the nation-state will determine the character of future wars, who will fight them and how they will be fought. “If twenty-first-century states are now more inclined to wage their wars with professional armies or even through private military contractors, it is not only for technical reasons, but also because they can no longer rely on citizens to be recruited in their millions and to die fighting for their homeland. Men and women are willing to die (or, more likely, kill) for money or for something smaller or for something larger, but in the original homelands of the nation, no longer for the nation-state. If people are not willing to die and kill for a national idea, for the defense of their nation-state, this does not mean that they are more peaceful and less inclined to die or kill. They will do so for something else, perhaps with fewer scruples.
