David Ignatius, in the WSJ (4-20-05):

A funny thing is happening on the way to a globalized economy: Even as national boundaries are getting fuzzier because of free trade and instant flows of capital, the world is becoming more nationalistic.

In this new nationalism, as in most things, America has been leading the way. American chauvinism and flag-waving are nothing new. President Bush elevated "America First" to a new ideology after Sept. 11, 2001, and he has been denounced by globalists ever since for his "unilateralism." But Bush bashers may be missing the real point: Everybody is more nationalistic these days.

Contrary to the assumptions of a decade ago, globalization isn't sweeping away national identities. In part, this new nationalism is a kind of geopolitical fundamentalism -- in which people cleave to old identities as a way of coping with the new stresses of globalization itself.

The past few weeks have brought examples of this powerful, if sometimes irrational, resurgence of nationalist sentiment. The Chinese seem to have gone off their rocker with the recent street protests against revisions of Japanese schoolbooks. The Chinese claim that the texts whitewash Japanese brutality against China during World War II. But what's more striking are the chanting, unruly nationalist protesters in Chinese cities.

Then there's France. After prodding other European nations for a generation toward its view of a unified Europe -- and after former President Valery Giscard d'Estaing took the lead in writing a new European constitution -- the French public is now leaning against ratifying that constitution in a referendum next month. The French will probably ratify the document in the end, but the lesson is clear. The old vision of a quasi-federal Europe must accommodate the new nationalism that is stirring across the continent. The French (and most other Europeans) want to guard their national sovereignty, their national culture, their national prerogatives, their protected national labor markets. These national traits may be inefficient, in a free-market sense, but a European constitution that tries to sweep them away will fail.

The gaudy parade of nationalisms continues: Iranians want their own made-in-Iran bomb, and this nuclear nationalism is as strong among the educated Iranian technocrats who are supposedly our friends as among the mullahs.

Zbigniew Brzezinski, a former U.S. national security adviser, notes that the new nationalism among young people is triggering some copycat movements. The Ukrainian "Orange Revolution" was driven in part by young street protesters from a group called Pora , or "It's Time." In response, notes Mr. Brzezinski, Russian leader Vladimir Putin has encouraged a new movement called Nashi, or "Ours," designed to appeal to the nationalism of young Russians. Mr. Brzezinski fears it could degenerate into a dangerous, right-wing "Nashi-ism."...