Trump's 'sovereignty' talk was what the UN needed to hear

To listen to the commentary, President Trump used an inappropriate term at the United Nations - not just Rocket Man, but "sovereignty."

It wasn't surprising that liberal analysts freaked out over Trump's nickname for Kim Jong Un and his warning that, if necessary, we'd "totally destroy" his country. These lines were calculated to get a reaction. More interesting was the allergy to the president's defense of sovereign nations.

MSNBC's Brian Williams wondered if the repeated use of the word "sovereignty" was a "dog whistle." CNN's Jim Sciutto called it "a loaded term" and "a favorite expression of authoritarian leaders."

It was a widely repeated trope that Trump's speech was "a giant gift," in the words of BuzzFeed, to China and Russia. In The Atlantic, Peter Beinart concluded that the address amounted to "imperialism." If so, couched in the rhetoric of the mutual respect of nations, it's the best-disguised imperialist manifesto in history.

Trump's critics misrepresent the speech and misunderstand the nationalist vision that Trump was setting out. He didn't defend a valueless international relativism.

At the start, he warned that "authoritarian powers seek to collapse the values, the systems, and alliances that prevented conflict and tilted the world toward freedom since World War II." He praised the US Constitution as a "timeless document [that] has been the foundation of peace, prosperity and freedom for the Americans and for countless millions around the globe."

"The Marshall Plan," he said, "was built on the noble idea that the whole world is safer when nations are strong, independent and free."

And he stated, correctly, that "our citizens have paid the ultimate price to defend our freedom and the freedom of many nations represented in this great hall."

Just window dressing? Trump returned to similar language in his denunciation of the world's rogue states. The Iranian government is hiding "a corrupt dictatorship behind the false guise of a democracy." And the US seeks "the full restoration of democracy and political freedoms in Venezuela."

Critics say these passages contradict his emphasis on the sovereignty of all nations, and there is no doubt a tension in Trump's emerging foreign policy. But he outlined a few key expectations.

He said, repeatedly, that we want "strong and independent nations" committed to promoting "security, prosperity and peace." And we look for nations "to respect the interests of their own people and the rights of every other sovereign nation."

Every country that Trump criticized by name fails one or both of these tests. So do Russia and China. Hence Trump's oblique criticism of their aggression: "We must reject threats to sovereignty, from the Ukraine to the South China Sea."

Trump's standards aren't drawn out of thin air. A consistent nationalist believes in the right of every nation to govern itself. Moreover, modern nationalism developed alongside the idea of popular sovereignty - i.e., the people have the right to rule, and the state is their agent, not the other way around. This is why the rise of nationalism was the worst thing to happen to dynastic rulers in Europe.

Trump's core claim that "the nation-state remains the best vehicle for elevating the human condition" is indubitably correct; it is what makes self-government possible. Given the choice between being governed by imperial center or transnational authorities, the people of almost every nation will choose - and fight if necessary - to govern themselves. (See the American Revolution.)

The UN charter itself says, "The Organization is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members." To the extent that the UN is now a gathering place for people who hope the nation-state will be eclipsed, it's useful to tell them that it's not going away.

Yet the speech did indeed have weaknesses. As usual, his bellicose lines stepped on his finer points; similarly, his personal combativeness prevents him from exploiting the potentially unifying themes of his nationalism at home. And even if sovereignty is important, it can't bear the weight of being the organizing principle of US foreign policy: Trump should add more principle to his "principled realism."

The president's foreign-policy vision is clearly still a work in progress, as he accommodates himself to the American international role that he for so long considered a rip-off and waste of time. Trump is adjusting to being the head of a sovereign nation - that happens to be the leader of the world.