The United States must defend its way of life without assuming that defense requires constant expansion of influence. File Photo by Pat Benic/UPI | License Photo
The author prefers to use the lowercase “n” in north Korea to challenge the Kim family regime’s legitimacy.
In 1945, George Orwell set out a distinction that still holds its edge today. He wrote, “Nationalism is power hunger tempered by self-deception.”
In the same essay, Notes on Nationalism, he defined patriotism as devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, while nationalism, in his view, was inseparable from the desire for power. These are not abstract ideas. They are tools for understanding how nations think, act and fight.
Patriotism is rooted. It is defensive. It binds people to land, culture, memory and shared experience. It does not seek to impose itself on others. It seeks to preserve what is already loved. A patriot defends home. He does not need to prove that his home is superior. It is enough that it is his.
Nationalism is different. It is expansive. It is ideological. It demands comparison, often superiority and often victory. It seeks validation through dominance. It mobilizes populations not simply to defend but to advance. Where patriotism says “this is ours,” nationalism says “this should be ours” or “this must prevail.” It carries energy. It also carries risk.
Orwell’s distinction holds, but it does not settle the American case. The United States does not fit neatly into either category. That is the problem. It is also the source of strength.
America is not only a place. It is an idea. It is grounded in a constitutional order, in a belief in individual liberty, rule of law, and self-government. This creates tension. If patriotism is devotion to place and way of life, what is American patriotism when the “way of life” is itself an abstract proposition?
An American does not only defend land. He defends a set of principles. Those principles claim universal relevance. That is where the line begins to blur. When a nation believes its founding ideas apply beyond its borders, does it remain patriotic in Orwell’s sense, or does it drift into nationalism?
History offers mixed evidence. There are moments when American action looks like classic patriotism. The defense of the homeland after attack. The maintenance of alliances. The protection of a stable international order that allows the American way of life to endure. These are acts of preservation.
There are other moments that look different. When the United States promotes democracy abroad, applies pressure to reshape other societies or frames global competition as a contest of systems, it operates in a space closer to nationalism as Orwell described it. The pursuit of power becomes tied to the validation of an idea. The line between defense and expansion fades.
This ambiguity matters in modern competition. Adversaries exploit it. In the cognitive domain, perception is terrain. China, Russia, Iran and north Korea do not need to defeat American forces in battle to gain advantage.
They need to shape how Americans see themselves. They amplify the contradiction. They ask, is America a defender of its own way of life, or is it an ideological actor seeking to impose that way of life on others?
If Americans cannot answer that question with clarity, others will answer it for them.
There is also a domestic dimension. Patriotism binds a people together. It creates cohesion. Nationalism can divide if it turns inward and begins to define who belongs and who does not based on rigid criteria. In a diverse society, this becomes a fault line. If nationalism becomes power hunger within, it corrodes the very unity it seeks to mobilize.
So where does that leave the United States?
It may be that America is neither purely patriotic nor purely nationalist. It is a hybrid. It must be. A nation founded on an idea cannot be only rooted in place. It must also engage in the contest of ideas.
But it cannot abandon the restraint that defines patriotism. Without that restraint, it risks becoming what Orwell warned against.
The strategic requirement is balance. The United States must defend its way of life without assuming that defense requires constant expansion of influence.
It must compete in the realm of ideas without turning every competition into a crusade.
It must recognize that power used to validate identity can lead to self-deception, especially if that identity is assumed to be universally accepted.
This is not a theoretical concern. It shapes policy, alliances and conflict. It shapes how American actions are interpreted abroad. It shapes how resilient the nation is at home.
The harder question remains. If American identity is tied to an idea, can that idea be defended without seeking to advance it? And if it must be advanced, how does the United States avoid crossing the line from patriotism into the kind of nationalism Orwell described?
There is no permanent answer. There is only constant judgment.
Planning matters more than plans. Identity may be the same. The definition of who Americans are is not fixed. It is contested. It is shaped by choices, by actions and by how those actions are understood.
The question is simple, but it does not yield easily. Are Americans defending what they are or trying to prove what they believe should be?
The answer will determine not only how the United States competes, but what it becomes.
David Maxwell, executive director of the Korea Regional Review, is a retired U.S. Army Special Forces colonel who has spent more than 30 years in the Asia-Indo-Pacific region. He specializes in Northeast Asian security affairs and irregular, unconventional and political warfare. He is vice president of the Center for Asia Pacific Strategy and a senior fellow at the Global Peace Foundation, where he works on a free and unified Korea. After he retired, he became associate director of the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University. He is on the board of directors of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea and the OSS Society and is the editor at large for the Small Wars Journal.
