The protection of nationals abroad was long a central theme of imperial history, notably as part of a now strongly rejected legacy of gunboat diplomacy. But that practice has undergone significant changes in the last decades as states from the Global South increasingly flex their muscle in protecting their migrant workers and diasporas. The question is whether the protection of nationals abroad is a tradition one would want to rehabilitate, and what it would mean to do so in a world where territory and population hardly always coincide and where the protection of “ethnic kin” can occasionally be used to fuel violence.