This week, the nation of Russia attacked the nation of Ukraine in what is widely and rightly being regarded as a brazen act of nationalist imperialism. The liberal news media in the West has tended to criticize Russia’s actions in the name of the sovereignty of the nation of Ukraine, taking the inviolability of sovereign national territories for granted.

In this dispatch, I propose that we criticize acts of nationalist imperialism otherwise than affirming the inviolability of sovereign national territories. In brief, I propose that we criticize acts of nationalist imperialism by affirming nations’ shared concern for ecoregions and by affirming more or less permeable ecoregional boundaries.