Balkan Countries Show The Dangers In Obsession With 'Heritage'

Though not a founder Abraham Lincoln, perhaps our greatest president, summarized it eloquently in his Gettysburg Address. The US, he said, was a“new nation, conceived in libertyand dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

Today, however, there has arisen a faction that prefers to think of the US as the first kind of nation. Vice President JD Vance is one of this faction's leaders.

The faction's adherents aren't fans of the Declaration of Independence or the Gettysburg Address. To them, we are less a nation committed to an idea, more one defined by being people of a particular“heritage” – European and Christian.

Vance and his fellow believers are egging on factions in Europe that would undo the European Union and encourage the continent to revert to a more nationalistic, less“European” outlook. For these factions on both continents, immigration is a big issue. Vance has warned Europe that its acceptance of Muslim refugees threatens“civilizational erasure.”

Opposition to immigration and nationalism are linked. If your identity is wholly Polish or Italian rather than at least partially European, you're more likely to be concerned about non-Poles and non-Italians diluting the Polish-ness or Italian-ness of your country's population.

Here in Dubrovnik, however, the tourist is reminded of a civilizational challenge more troubling than immigration: keeping the peace. This challenge doesn't get much attention precisely because a united Europe has met it so effectively. EU nations settle their differences in the political and judicial systems, not on the battlefield.

Preventing a replay of World Wars I and II was the original motivation for the various attempts at union that led to the EU. French and German statesmen felt they were less likely to go to war again if they were united as fellow Europeans. The shared prosperity of a low-tariff market would give Europeans a reason to remain at peace.

In a way, Yugoslavia played a similar role suppressing the worst aspects of nationalism. When these countries became independent in the 1990s and beyond, wars broke out – between Croatia and ethnic Serbs backed by Serbia's president; between ethnic Serbs, Croats and Bosnian Muslims in Bosnia; between Kosovans and Serbia.

Dubrovnik was under siege for eight months. Along the top of Dubrovnik's famed medieval walls, the tourist can find some relatively new tiles, put there to replace old ones that didn't survive the bombing.

Mr. Vice President, please note that fixation on“heritage” was the root cause of these wars.

The Yugoslav countries were never ethnically pure. There have, for example, always been Orthodox Serbs living in Croatia (Nikolas Tesla, who gave the world AC electricity, was one) and Catholic Croats living in Serbia.