To use the modern example; I think India and Britain both suffered.

Both the nations suffering an imperial overlord and the nation lording must lose their sense of identity to become part of the endeavor. The affair is naturally detrimental to both the oppressor and the oppressed.

It seems to me that the two states of being are mutually exclusive. The best fight against nationalism is imperialism. And the best way to crush imperialism nationalism. The two states of being cannot exist in the same place for much more than a very limited amount of time.

It seems like every historic example has state actors falling into one category or the other with no other options.

Thanks. To turn this into a management issue; maybe this is like the “economy of scale”with a business. If a business expands from 10 to 50 employees that usually leads to much greater efficiency due to more specialized roles for the employees, better management structure etc. however once that business grows past a certain size it becomes very difficult to manage and you see reduced efficiency per capita. Like how all my friends that work in DC hide within a huge federal bureaucracy and never actually do jack shit.

Of course with a nation there are much more complex factors such as geography and ethnic make up.

I’m just thinking about the reigh size for a nation. Maybe ideological concepts don’t matter so much as overall per capita production. like a business you don’t want to add more employees if there will be no increased yield when your accountant does your yearly filing. What’s the use of all the headache of managing a massive business when you can derive the same benefit from working as a much smaller easily handled organization.