Vladimir Putin says there was nothing wrong with Soviet Union's pact with Adolf Hitler's Nazi German

[pampango]

91. If you think a government has the right/duty to pursue its national interest to the exclusion

of anything else, then you can make a case for that Nazi-Soviet agreement. Although it led to the German/Soviet destruction of Poland, the Soviet takeover of the Baltic countries and encouraged/enabled Hitler to continue with the invasion of France the next year, you could argue that it expanded the borders of the USSR and gave it a couple of extra years to prepare for a seemingly inevitable German invasion. Thus it served the 'national interest' of the USSR if not of the world as a whole.

However, I would argue that it is not liberal to condone the selfish pursuit on national interest (anymore than it is to pursue selfish corporate interest). Perhaps the selfishness of the focus on national interest is why the far right is such a huge supporter of the concept of nationalism rather than international agreement and cooperation.