2,257 words
The following is the text of Greg Johnson’s opening statement in the “Ethnonationalism vs. Imperialism” debate with Gregory Hood that was held at the recent Counter-Currents Spring Retreat. Gregory Hood’s opening statement , which came after this one, can be read here.
By my count, there are 52 historically white sovereign states in the world today. That’s not a lot. That’s one for every card in a standard deck. By “historically white,” I mean a state that had a white majority and white culture within the last 70 years, during which plunging white fertility rates and non-white immigration began changing historically white lands into multicultural, multiracial dystopias.
Note that I am simply talking about existing white “states” or “countries.” I will not talk about “nation-states” or “ethnostates,” because most existing white states don’t meet that description. The Vatican, for instance, is not the homeland of a people but the sovereign headquarters of a Church. But this is the world we live in, so this is where we have to begin.
In every one of these states, white birthrates are below replacement. If these trends persist, the white race will become extinct, even in the absence of non-white immigration, which is at alarming levels in most historically white countries.
How, then, can we save the white race? We need to play our cards right. We have been dealt 52 sovereign states. Sovereignty means a state controls its own internal affairs. A sovereign state is empowered to say “no” to all subsidiary jurisdictions. A sovereign state also has the power to say “no” to other sovereign states and to transnational bodies such as the United Nations, the European Union, and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Sovereign states can control their own borders. They also have the power to create incentives and remove disincentives to healthy population growth.

You can buy Greg Johnson’s Toward a New Nationalism here
Thus, if whites around the world are to be saved, our goal should be to take power in as many historically white sovereign states as possible, preferably all of them. Then we need to use state power to raise white birthrates, end non-white immigration, and begin non-white emigration.
The wild card is the Vatican, which is untroubled by low birthrates among its celibate residents. Nor is it beset with immigrants. But the Vatican could still do a great deal to combat the demographic decline of white Catholics.
It sounds like a huge task for a small movement. But you shouldn’t wonder if a small but organized and fanatical minority can change the course of history, because they do so all the time. Truth be told, they are the only force that makes history. They always have. So how do we begin?
First, we need to spread the word about white demographic decline, its causes, and its cures. Then we need to find courageous and farsighted people in every white state to create white preservationist movements. These movements need to raise public awareness of anti-white demographic trends, propose workable solutions, and organize politically to contest for power on all levels of the system. But the ultimate goal of our movement should be to gain the highest levels of power in as many sovereign states as possible, then implement the necessary policies to save our people.
Who is most likely to support such efforts in the white states that exist today? They will tend to be people with strong attachments to their own kith and kin, including their own ethnic group. They will tend to have pro-natal, pro-family values. They are likely to be patriotic, ethnocentric, and even nationalistic. But they won’t fall for the fake civic nationalism that declares Africans with a Swedish passport to be Swedes. They know that every real Swede is a white person, although they also know that not every white person is a Swede. They will tend to be on the political Right. Because they are attached to their own homelands and serious about connecting with and converting their own people, they will tend to look to their own traditions for models of the movements, policies, and champions necessary to save their countries.
But that doesn’t mean that each of the 52 white preservationist movements has to go it alone. Since all white lands face the same challenges and the same enemies, white advocates everywhere are more likely to triumph if they can cooperate with one another. They can share ideas, strategies, and tactics. They can support one another in international bodies. They can provide moral and material support to beleaguered comrades in other countries. Thus we need to maximize communication, cooperation, and solidarity among pro-whites worldwide. The more that we cooperate, the greater the chance that at least some white countries can be saved.
How can we maximize cooperation among pro-white movements? If two states wish to cooperate, they have to treat one another with mutual respect, meaning that they recognize the legitimacy of one another’s sovereignty and interests. What is true of cooperation between states is true of cooperation between nationalist movements, nationalists being those most likely to insist on respecting the sovereignty of their own homelands.
What is the quickest way to chill international cooperation among white advocates? To reject the sovereignty of any white state. Again, the people who are most likely to promote white survival in any particular state are also the most likely to be fervent patriots and nationalists. Attacking the sovereignty of a white state thus makes enemies of those who were most likely to be our friends — i.e., those who were most likely to cooperate with and strengthen us in the most important struggle in the world against overwhelming odds and diabolical enemies. I can’t think of a more self-defeating tactic if one’s aim is to foster worldwide cooperation among white preservationists.

You can buy Greg Johnson’s New Right vs. Old Right here
There are two principal ways to reject the sovereignty of other white states.
The first is the bad old zero-sum nationalism of the past, in which nations struggled to preserve their own sovereignty while denying the sovereignty of their neighbors. They refused to treat others as they wished to be treated themselves. I hesitate to even call this position nationalism, since there is a better word for when one nation aggresses against another. We call that imperialism. I wish to reserve the word “nationalism” for the good kind of nationalists, who believe in nationalism for all nations. They treat other peoples as they would like to be treated themselves.
White preservationists don’t have the power to launch wars against other white states. But every white nation has historical grievances against other white nations due to the bad old nationalism. Oftentimes, it is possible to chill international cooperation between pro-white groups simply by rehashing old wars and old grievances.
Morally speaking, this is even worse than the bad old nationalists — who may have been evil, but at least they weren’t stupid. If nothing else, they believed they were gaining some tangible benefit by attacking their neighbors. But nobody is benefitted when white preservationists fall out over battles that took place in the past rather than pull together to fight the great battle of our time.
The second way to sabotage international cooperation is the idea of one great white state: a white imperium or “civilization-state.” I have criticized the principal arguments for one big white state in my essay “Against Imperialism,” and we shall surely revisit them in the course of this debate. But before we go into such arguments, let’s take a step back and ask ourselves how such discussions will impact our current struggle.
In today’s 52 historically white sovereign states, I know of pro-white individuals or groups in 44 of them. I don’t know of any in Moldova, Kosovo, Cyprus, San Marino, Lichtenstein, Andorra, Monaco, or the Vatican. But maybe I haven’t looked hard enough. I also know of white preservationists in majority non-white countries such as Chile and Brazil.
All of these individuals and groups feel strong attachments to their families, their homelands, and their race. Many of them struggle daily with alienation, demoralization, and oppression. But the strongest prevail. They talk to family, friends, even complete strangers. They post ideas online. They form virtual and real-world networks. They found webzines, publishing houses, active clubs, and activist groups. Some of these groups grow into political parties. Some of these parties actually win elections. A few actually govern.
But all of these institutions, large or small, began with small, individual acts of courage in particular places and at particular times. Someday, I would like to see a worldwide congress of white advocates from all 52 states, as well as white minority populations around the world. I would like to see them all working together for the preservation of our race. But that dream will only emerge from the grassroots efforts of white advocates in their own countries.
What’s the last thing these people need to hear from us? How about that their efforts are “petty”? That they live in silly little “comic opera” states that don’t really have sovereignty? That their efforts are doomed to defeat? That their peoples and cultures have no future except as provinces of one great white state? But not to worry, they will be granted “autonomy” by the capital to speak their quaint languages and dance their quaint dances on their little Estonian and Slovenian and Hungarian reservations. So they should stop working to take state power in their own countries and wait for an emperor to save them. Indeed, if I were crafting propaganda to demoralize white activists, I couldn’t come up with a better message.
Personally, I think we should encourage grassroots white preservationist efforts in as many countries as possible, not pour cold water on them. But the “one white state” idea is a great gush of cold water, delivered from on high. Even if one white state were supported by strong arguments (which it is not), I want to argue that it is impolitic, bad optics, even bad taste to bring it up, because it denigrates the grassroots efforts of pro-whites around the world.
Ethnic nationalist movements, including separatist movements such as in Flanders, are where the energy and numbers are. Aside from a few would-be emperors, there isn’t much of a constituency for one big white state.
Fortunately, from my experience in the quaint, comic opera statelets of Europe, the idea of one white state has had little negative effect, largely because it is dismissed. It is seen as an “American” idea, because most Europeans don’t recognize Americans as a distinct people, compounded out of other peoples. They see us as simply generic, deracinated whites hankering for a generic white state. I have criticized this false image of Americans in my essay “American Ethnic Identity,”[1] where I argue that Americans are a distinct white people who deserve a homeland of their own.
There are no generic white people. There are many white peoples distinguished by their languages, cultures, and histories. Thus, White Nationalism does not mean one homeland for one white people. It means many homelands for many white peoples. White Nationalism in America is American nationalism, just as White Nationlism in Spain is Spanish nationalism.

You can buy Francis Parker Yockey’s The Enemy of Europe here.
The idea of one big white state is also seen as apologetics for the bad old imperialist “nationalism.” Yockey’s Imperium was a defense of Hitler’s imperialism. Yockey’s The Enemy of Europe was a serpentine defense of Stalin’s. Today’s Eurasianists are simply dismissed as apologists for Russian/neo-Soviet imperial revanchism.
Today’s Europe consists of the shattered remnants of old empires. Today’s Europe is in the pincers of American and Russian imperialism. Europe also faces an enemy within: the EU, which even now gnaws at its entrails. Given this history — given this present situation — I think we can understand why European nationalists want to preserve and perfect their sovereignty, not throw it all away.
But don’t nations and national identities change over time? Couldn’t whites grow out of their particular identities into a pan-white identity? Couldn’t they become like Americans, a new people compounded out of many different peoples? Yes, of course, today’s distinct white nations could disappear. Countless peoples throughout history have disappeared not just by slaughter, but by assimilation.
But how does that sound to the people whose grassroots efforts we wish to encourage today? Nobody wants to hear that his identity does not matter. Nobody wants to hear that he is regarded merely as fungible raw material for someone else’s grandiose dream. That sounds like the globalist dystopia we all want to reject; just a smaller, whiter version of it. It does not sound like the respect that is the bedrock of productive collaboration.
America was founded by people who were willing to give up their homelands over religion, ideology, and money. The people who remained behind were not willing to do that. Moreover, the passionate identitarians among them are the least receptive to such a proposal. And those are precisely the people we need to work with.
Why do I oppose one white state? Because I think the idea harms rather than helps the cause of white survival. We have been dealt 52 sovereign historically white entities. That’s where white preservationism needs to begin. That’s where it has begun. That’s where the energy is. That’s where the people are. It seems mad to throw it all away to chase a meme. If we are going to save our race, we will save it one white state at a time.
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Note
[1] Greg Johnson, “American Ethnic Identity,” reprinted in Toward a New Nationalism (San Francisco: Counter-Currents, 2019).
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19 comments
What about independent (Upper) Silesian state? I am not anti-polish, unlike many other Upper Silesians, but I don’t feel myself a Pole.
Don’t, then. (As as German, I approve! 😉 ) The idea is not to give up ethnic identities, but to work together for survival. If and when we’ve accomplished that, we can discuss inter-white grievances and independent mini-states all we like.
I think the point about preserving the vitality of energy where it is at is important. We are, today, small in numbers in terms of people conscious of the stakes. We are heavily outspent and propagandized. Our enemy is weak whenever a migrant kills one of us or rapes one of us. Our enemy is weak whenever our money is spent housing, feeding, clothing, training and employing alien invaders. Our enemy is weak when an alien invader taunts their host city, state and country. Our enemy is weak when an indigenous white person must grovel and apologize for, “offending”, an alien invader by demanding their homeland be protected or by accidentally brushing against an alien invader in class.
Those are local phenomenon that must provoke local outrage. The response to the outrages and effective organization to fight back can only happen locally.
An alien invader that goes to Sweden is going to Sweden. Thus Sweden must be defended by Swedes. All of the aforementioned phenomena are local events. It is the local event that touches people and their lives. We must react to and respond to local events. When our folk on our block or town are attacked we come to their aid to defend them and our town and block. It is the local events that will give fuel to the cause. It is the immediate threat that brings about immediate response.
I suspect in the end we could have a dual goal and set of strategies and tactics. An international organization is coordinating against all of our homelands jointly to fashion its own imperium out of the alien invaders they bring in to replace us. Conquer the land by slowly replacing the people. It is diabolical in its malevolent genius.
I think there are many great points here – harnessing local energy and passion is a big one. I look forward to hearing the counter-argument and the entire debate. At this point, wherever and however we have energy and action that is effective or is moving toward being effective it should not be diffused while waiting for some higher directive.
I look forward to hearing the imperium argument and seeing the full debate. I am sure there are compelling reasons to consider if not an imperium, some sort of coordinated, over arching vision and structure.
I am increasingly seeing a continued neoliberal foreign policy as necessary before any white ethno-states are to be established. It is the leftists currently leading American Empire geopolitics like they always have, besides the neocon takeover era of the GOP, as white rightists tend to default to isolationist, nationalist protectionism. Unfortunately, these same neoliberals do not allow us to have borders or homogeneity, leading to an endless queue of Third World migrants. The only thing slowing these people down is postmodernism. White leftists exporting wokeness, cultural Marxism, feminism and all of that to nonwhite countries is dramatically suppressing their birthrates. This is already occurring in Cuba and most of the Caribbean islands, where there is a huge (and perhaps final) blitzkrieg of migration despite negative population growth (more annual deaths than births).
There is also another option: building Wakanda on every continent – a nonwhite empire vectoring nonwhite immigration away from the West. Depending on how it is calibrated there is really only one such country: Turkey, with a few honorable mentions (Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Singapore, UAE, Colombia, Saudi Arabia).
Chile is siphoning huge amounts of Haitians away from America, Brazil is enticing Arabs, Colombia is absorbing Venezuelans. Saudi Arabia beckons so many Indians, Pakistanis, Filipinos, East Africans etc while not giving them rights and thus disallowing any integration or procreation. Meanwhile, Turkey is courting millions of Syrians, Afghans, Turkics and Arab Muslim refugees. These people use Anatolia as a staging ground to enter Europe, yet the vast majority end up being incidentally Turkified waiting to infiltrate Greece.
If only there were a strong African country to funnel Africans away from Europe. South Africa somewhat serves this purpose because the birthrates are significantly lower than the rest of black Africa simply because of the white South African trendsetter, drawing in African migration from the entire continent and stirring ethnocentric black xenophobia. My hope is the rapidly depopulating East Asia, now that China is the fastest declining demographic in history, will get the ball rolling on compensatory enrichment, which will be a game-changer because there was already about a million fewer Chinese births than deaths in 2022. The coefficient will rise exponentially every single year leading to tens of millions of fewer Chinamen. This will force China to recall its 50 million overseas colonists and perhaps invite jungle Asians to fill its depleted ranks.
Africa is under strong Chinese neocolonialist rule. The Africans do and will do what the Chinese tell them.
and wait for an emperor to save them
Well, untill Ukrainians stop to fight, the Emperor will not save them. I know the Germans and the French wait for Pu the Great liberate them from the Zionist USA
A propos, why Chile is not a white state? It is much more white than Russia or France.
Chile is majority mestizo.
89% of Chileans are Europeoids. And the ruling elite is totally European.
Citation needed
I was intrigued by this question and it turned out that the data on the racial composition of the Chileans vary greatly. The Russian-language Wikipedia writes about 89% of “Caucasians”. Whereas the data given in the American Wikipedia give different figures. 53, 64, 72 percent are white. Perhaps the reason is that different statistics consider mestizos differently and classify some of the mestizos as white in different ways. Or the mestizos considered themselves differently, some thinks they are white, and some thinks they are not. There was not “one drop-rule” in Chile.
I applaud Mr. Johnson for avoiding the trap of siding with one pan-globalist ideology over another as they relate to whites.
Taking control of local government seats in small nation states is a more achievable task than taking over an existing imperial power. We can’t take over the FBI, CIA, ATF, IRS, court system, legacy media, big tech and the universities.
The right keeps waiting for a vague “collapse” to happen, whereupon they will somehow (details on this are also vague) climb into a position of power and compel other whites to obey them. But it is passive and strategically incoherent to sit back and expect everything to fall into place on its own.
The dissident right must take action, and as of yet there is no plan of action. I agree with most of Gregory Hood’s remarks from the debate, but I have to side with Greg Johnson simply based on pragmatics. The “imperial” side of the debate is purely theoretical. Yes, if white nationalists controlled the centers of American power – courts, universities, media, donor class, financial system, the military – then they could liberate Europe and its white colonies. But they don’t control it and there is no plan on how to take it over.
The problem with America and American’s is that they have incepted a foreign race of people’s so called subsidiary “religion” as their own denying their ancient Father’s wisdom, and serving the foreign race source nation’s global politico-economic parent “religion’s” aspirations for their “religion’s” goal of so called Tikkum Olam and global “dominionism”… , … and it ain’t for the European descended “white” peoples’ benefit or dominion!! Indeed you will be a slave in that other “white” meat’s imperium as per the law of the subsidiary religion’s definitions::
The monarch will have absolute ownership right (ie. no allodium or property rights of any kind, except for the hereditary monarch and his so called oligarchy, err hereditary “aristocracy” ” 2962 kýrios – properly, a person exercising absolute ownership rights; lord (Lord). https://biblehub.com/greek/2962.htm
along with what you will be, a slave in the non-European’s “white” imperium, by their law if successfully imposed on what’s left of the European man’s ethno-nation’s !! Be very careful what you wish for as yo may get it!!:
“1401 doúlos (a masculine noun of uncertain derivation) – properly, someone who belongs to another; a bond-slave, without any ownership rights of their own. Ironically, 1401 /doúlos (“bond-slave”) is used with the highest dignity in the NT – namely, of believers who willingly live under Christ’s authority as His devoted followers. https://biblehub.com/greek/1401.htm
Exceedingly rational. In fact, I’d be shitting bricks if I had to follow you with an opposing position after that.
I do have a question that may have been canvassed on your retreat. How do you think any white nationalist movement of any size at all is going to manage to survive the globalist juggernaut?
The question is: How will globalism survive the nationalist juggernaut?
This is a beautiful statement, Greg. Very moving.
Thank you.
Thank you
I haven’t seen or heard Gregory Hood’s part in this and I look forward to it. Dr Johnson always puts forward a compelling and first class case and I’d urge everyone to watch his video – restoring white homelands.
Without having listened to the counter point (and I value Gregory Hood highly) I would tend naturally to spread our bets to continue the playing card analogy. I think geographical spread is significant. It’s where we belong for a start and it is where our many languages, cultures and legends emerged and flourished.
My concern is the weight of the behemoth that confronts us. Yes, small groups can have a significant impact and I agree that white nations need to support other white nations. For example the animosity that runs deep in tribal and sectarian feuds and murderous sprees in Northern Ireland and the over spill onto the UK mainland is one. The former Yugoslavia is another. How do we get past this? I do now recognise the plight of the Republic of Ireland, my Loyalist, Unionist and Protestant friends do not. This is a personal position based completely on the existential threat we find ourselves. I haven’t touched on the subject (but hinted) with friends as yet. That’s a position I have to overcome. There is a vast majority of my fellow Loyalists who will not. That’s an internal battle I do not see coming to a resolution or understanding anytime soon to support the thesis of ‘chilling support’ “by rehashing old wars and grievances” as Greg puts it.
I’ve almost finished the Open Society Playbook by Scott Howard. The weight of governments, NGO’s, societies, bad actors, self loathing whites, technology, big business, Jewish influence, think tanks, charities, philanthropic hegemony and supra states are all against what we are stand for. I’ll be honest, I’m not sure how we defeat this or even gain parity given the hatred aimed at us and our philosophy. I’m in it for the long haul as long as I am here and for the greater good by putting aside historical disagreements but no matter how eloquent the inspiring words from Greg and Gregory, AmRen et al we are being attacked and eroded by a multitude from every angle and all at the same time.
There is an ancient and magnificent yew tree that stands in the grounds of a very old church in Fortingall in Perthshire. It is said to be circa 3ooo years old according to dendrochronology. This mass and relentless assault on White European heritage and its legacy in the antipodeans and North America is like an attack on one of the oldest living things in Europe. The ewe, just like the magnificent American oak is being micro planed at a thousand different angles, a micron thick every second of every day.
I’ll end on this, the thing that keeps me awake at night is the beauty, history, landscape, architecture and literature that no one has the right to adore other than the people who put it there falling to the savage and transgressive.
In Greg’s follow-up response to Mr. Hood’s admittedly rousing and enjoyable opening remarks at the retreat he made a point on which the strength of the ethno-nationalist argument hangs and, in my opinion, triumphs: that a new kind of man is needed in order for the empire to be a palatable and healthy choice for white peoples.
The implication of course is that a new kind of man cannot reasonably be expected to emerge from nature (which has thus far not, to my knowledge anyway, produced such a creature).
As I understand it, the new man would need to become indifferent to a preference for his own ethnic identity and enthusiastically shunt it in favor of something amalgamous (the details of which are still to be determined but will presumably be too desirable not to embrace) to which he would become devoted. A new man.
Until the empire side makes the case that man can be rewired, truly rewired, not just convinced to try something new for a season because so many other things look dismal, the case for empire remains for me a non-starter.
Mr. Hood is a hell of a good speaker. He made compelling points and I’m glad that he’s an ally. But Greg’s argument for ethno-nationalism continues to convince me, just as it did several years ago when I first heard it.
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