It struck me that nationalism is a “global” feeling, whereas patriotism is concerned with the internal domestic affairs of one’s nation.  The nationalist is very concerned with how other countries view his own, or in how his own country should interact with other nations.  The patriot is not nearly concerned with how his country is viewed by outsiders.  Thus, while (Ron Paul jumps to mind, sorry) could easily be called a patriot, I would hesitate to call him a nationalist.  However, with the threat of terrorism generally viewed as a domestic threat, the lines between patriotism and nationalism become blurred, for a man (Pres. Bush comes to mind, again I apologize) to be concerned for the domestic health of his country as well as its international status.  Perhaps it is as simple as the difference between love and pride (patriotism and nationalism respectively).  One may have both, one or the other, or neither.  For instance, I have love for my region (the midwest) but not necessarily for every part of the country, thus, I would hesitate to call myself a patriot (and certainly not a nationalist - I feel very little pride in my nation at this rotten stage).

It surprises me that someone familiar with Orthodox culture would write this. As early as the sseventeenth century the Serbs recognized various groups of their own language/religion to be kindred, and, though deivided between empires, helped each other out as local communities. This is not to say that they were political nationalists seeking a Westphalian state, but that there were ties far beyond the local community. Eventaully of course they pushed for their own state, not only in the Ottoman empire but in Southern Hungary. The peoople of the low coutnry fought as a nation against the Spanish empire—uniting far beyond local villages. Germany and Italy were both recognizable as culture nations, the gradual political union of both was not some random process but a propoer alignment of the cultural and political. Both, obviously, exceded their bounds eventually, but that was due more to the ideology of imperialism than to nationalism.

President Bush’s “National Security Strategy” 2002 begins with this remarkable sentence: “The great struggles of the twentieth century between liberty and totalitarianism ended with a decisive victory for the forces of freedom--and a single sustainable model for national success: freedom, democracy, and free enterprise.” This could serve as a working definition for what Mr. Larison is properly calling “nationalism.” Nationalism almost always (at least in today’s world) requires ideology, which has nothing to do with patriotism, or love of the patria.  Mr. Larison’s brilliant column, “Look Homeward,” in the February 25 issue of The American Conservative, makes a similar case for the very great distinction between conservative institutions and Republican politics, which is a subset of this larger argument.  Sadly, the last conservative Republican patriot to occupy the White House was probably Calvin Coolidge.

Bush is the antithesis of a nationalist. He is an imperialist. Many of his major goals revolve around enriching and increasing the power of a small privileged clique and of a small foreign country.

Please think before writing such nonsense.

Webster’s:

Nationalism: Loyalty and devotion to a nation; especially:  a sense of national consciousness exalting one nation above all others and placing primary emphasis on promotion of its culture and interests as opposed to those of other nations of supranational groups. 

“historically nationalism has signified something else: an abstract commitment to a nation that isn’t necessarily concerned with the well-being of a particular people in a particular place (traditionally denoted as patriotism). . . The nationalist, properly defined, is preoccupied with either a mission or with “greatness” or both.”

The word Nationalist historically has often been used to describe groups trying to get out from under the boot heel of some foreign oppressor.  The word you are looking for is indeed imperialist.  Nationalists, like internationalists, may be imperialist or anti-imperialists (most imperialism today is internationalist in nature - the great territory wars are over - at least for now).  Bush isn’t really an imperialist though, he really isn’t even an internationalist.  he and his Republican bigwig cohorts are just amoral big businessmen who are willing to go along (to get along) with the internationalism of the dominant cultural elite (that is to say, the real political power) as long as they can still protect their class and personal interests.  That’s what “compassionate conservative” means.  If Bush and crew were really nationalists we wouldn’t be in Iraq, nor would we have a border problem.  You can’t believe in “creedal nation” and be a nationalist, period.  Creedal nation’s practical manifestation, mass immigration, is internationalism turned inward. 

The nation-state isn’t disappearing any time soon, we’re not going back to some arcadian utopia where people owe their allegiance to their town or region because the organized have an advantage over the disorganized, and a proper nation-state is the largest and most efficient organization that can be built around the (ideally) shared cultural interests of its citizens, driven in large part by technology.  Your village isn’t going to compete with a China, it will be dictated to by a China.  Westerners who abandon the nation-state are merely choosing to commit historical suicide, others won’t be as foolish.

I think some historical context could help in these logomachies about “nationalism,” which first arises as a revolutionary ideology both in Tudor England and Jacobin France along with massive internal repression: the transfer of wealth and resources from one class to another, inquisitions, persecutions, torture, scapegoating enemies and ideological criminalization.
Here and now we have the whole kit: the rampage of finance, the Patriot and Military Commissions Acts, internment, torture, the abrogation of the Bill of Rights, Islamo-viral nightmares and hallucinations, and HR 1955, The American Inquisition.
The “proposition” involved in this “proposition nation” is hardly calm or rational so your analysis seems somehow incommensurate to account for what is at stake.  I mean, is this like just for fun “Take the test! Are you a patriot or a nationalist?

Bush ran and won in 2000 on a platform of “humble” foreign policy and generally smaller, more modest, less intrusive federal government. We were attacked on 9/11 as a result of our belligerent foreign policies, and suddenly Bush’s entire platform goes out the window?
Born and bred a snot-nosed scion of few principles, intellectual or otherwise, the empty vessel Bush, who had always been cushioned from the reality of his own incompetence by his string-pulling clan, in his role as president was quickly surrounded by a pack of Straussian Neocon Trotskyites in a city that has been impacted by other political currents in the Marxist vein for decades. Combine this malign influence with the forces of greedy big business as epitomized by the military-industrial complex, big media, and the military services industry, throw in crackpot “faith-based” theories of Empire, Zionism and privatized occupation technocrats “remaking” the middle east, and package it all in a pretense of “fighting terrorism and spreading freedom and democracy,” and what do you call the resultant witches brew?
The worst, most parasitic components of a “diverse” America (religious, political, cultural, economic, ideological and otherwise) have descended upon Washington and this selfish, ambitious, delusional, bickering tower of Babel has produced America’s insane, incompetent, blundering foreign policy (and its insane domestic policy as well.)
I don’t think the label has been invented yet that describes this poisonous stew, but I call it Red-fascism.

“Dubya” is clearly an “internationalist”, frustrated with his citizens not in agreement with his “GLOBALIST AGENDA”! He sees the world as his clay to be molded into his vission of “Cultic Democracy.” Had he come from a normal family, he would most likely be in prison or trying to grow some wacked out cult?

To imply that national loyalty is a kind of supremacism is not known to be more than a smear-job, copied out of the liberal one-worlder’s book. Is one supposed to dream that the UN wouldn’t be a terror-support organization, if only it were Christian, but the world is not about to convert. Instead it exploits any and every weakness of national loyalty on the right, to get its indispensable aggressors in to the countries whose national loyalties are a threat to anti-civilizational internationalism.