Russia reasserting itself

I guess I neglected to link to the previous week's Antiwar.com column. It wasn't the article I thought it was going to be when I sat down to write. But I got fascinated by the difference between patriotism and nationalism, which I delineate as love for country as compared to hostility to other countries, sometimes to the point of seeing war as desirable. The context is the Russian-Georgian conflict, which has permitted many to revive all kinds of Cold War tropes and seem to settle in comfortably to hating a familiar enemy/adversary. Of course for those always looking around the world with a chip on their nationalistic shoulder, the Russians were sure to come to the fore eventually, given that Russia has always worried about and tried to dominate its "near abroad."

I think I got a patriotism/nationalism discussion going among Antiwar.com commenters, some of whom thought I was all wet. Good.