Critically discussing the term “nation-state” in Chapter 2 may have been irritating for many readers. Suggesting in this chapter that we must also rescue the nation-state to preserve global peace must, hence, be awfully provocative. But this is exactly the argument this book is making.

This book is not about any kind of resurrection of nationalism nor is it against closer integration of nation-states as, for example, in the European Union. It makes, however, the argument that human societies must continue to be built around social communities that have some common identities and values and form structured organizations that reflect these identities and values. Despite the huge advances in globalization, in international travel, transnational trade, and in information technologies, these social organizations will continue to be based on clearly defined territories and hence have borders. Such a social organization is the nation-state and there is no other known form of social organization that could replace it. In the foreseeable future, the nation-state will hence remain a social framework that ensures – or fails to ensure – peace, security, justice, and prosperity to defined groups of citizens living within clearly defined territorial borders.

The nation-state will also continue to remain the basic building block on which international relations are built. If nation-states fail, one of these building blocks will break, and if several nation-states fail, this risks bringing down the entire international building. Today, through instant communication, global travel, and an international economy, these broken building blocks could easily contaminate neighboring societies and bring down the entire building of the international system. Instead of replacing the nation-state, globalization makes functioning nation-states ever more important – even indispensable.

Nation-states can take many different forms. They may not need to remain the way we know them today; they will no doubt continue to evolve. There is for example the suggestion that the future belongs to city-states such as Singapore or to autonomous regions. We may also see new territorial nation-states emerge. New nation-states may be the result of breakups of once larger nation-states as it happened following the breakup of the Soviet Union.