Hi Laurie, These are perceptive thoughts and I relate to them as an American (who also has made her life in another country). For me, the relevance of this essay is not that it teaches me how to relate to my own country but rather that it helps me understand why small and embattled countries (like Georgia, or Palestine, or Ukraine) place such a high premium on their national identity. They are right to do so, in part because if they don't, these countries are at risk of vanishing from the earth and that would be a loss for all humanity. As someone born in the US, however, I know that there is no such risk with respect to the country of my birth. In the context of the country where we were born, patriotism all too often merges with imperialism. So I think the lesson here for Americans is not so much that we should be like Vazha but that we should read him to understand why people from small countries must defend their own self-determination in order to survive as a people, and why we should support them in that struggle. I would also add that most "conflicts over land and borders and ethnicity" have as much if not more to do with imperialism than with pseudo-patriotism (certainly that's true of Palestine and most post-Soviet violence). Perhaps we should say that Vazha's analysis should be combined with a critique of imperialism and then it would generate an approach that would be more generally applicable--I hope it makes sense!