As an Englishman and therefore, pace Rhodes, "hav[ing] consequently won first prize in the lottery of life" I fnd it amusing sometimes to look at those nations who are forced to jostle for second place and note their general lack of self-confidence [This musing is, by the way, triggered by a long but excellent TNR article about French Anti-Americanism and the long history thereof which I found via Clive Davis - that article BTW is entirely serious, this one is only serious in spots].
In some ways it seems to me that the English are probably excessive in their own self-esteem, not for nothing is there that well known quip that:
The Scots keep the Sabbath, and anything else they can get their hands on. The Welsh pray on their knees, and on their neighbours. The Irish don't know what they want, but will fight to the death for it. Whereas the English consider themselves a race of self-made men, thereby absolving the almighty of an awful responsibility.
But I think that in such jokes there is a significant element of truth. The English do seem to be a remarkably self confident race. I think it was George Mikes (the author of How to Be an Alien) who explained that the English are never foreigners. Even when they are in a another country talking another language to the locals they are still the English and not the foreigners. If calling the residents of the country we are currently in foreigners seems a little tricky then we say we are talking to the natives or the locals (or some derogatroy term that makes clear our superiority) and mostly we take pride in expecting the foreigners to speak English and not deigning to learn their barbarous excuse for a language.
Not only are we self confident but we tend to be very good at taking credit for the actions of others, think of all those Welsh, Scots and Irish who we lump into England when we want to take credit from their literature or inventiveness, not to mention those step-English Americans and Australians whose successes are entirely due to their being kicked out of England for being awkward, and yet distancing ourselves from the Essex lad or girl throwing up in the street or shouting rude songs in Torremolinos. This sort of generosity of spirit, our willingness to bestow an honoury English nationality on talented foreigners, is I think rather rare in Europe, although I admit it is more common in "the colonies" where they seem to think that living in a coutnry for a few years is proof that you are of that nation.
However unlike our colonial step-brethren and sistren we English don't worry about our lack of cultured graces. Notwithstanding the Sydney Opera House or the numerous artistic contributions of America, Canada and so on our colonial children, or at least those who think of themselves as the Intelligensia therein, frequently seem to feel that their culture is somehow unworthy to aspire to anything European (or sometimes Asian) because of its crass materialism low taste etc. etc. We English on the other hand, while we have the same crass materialism, low brow taste etc., never worry about our lack of culture because we know that the job of foriegners in Italy, France etc. is to be guardians of culture for us. We also know that they don't wash frequently (and may have other equally unsavoury habits) and hence their opinion of us is of sublime indifference.
Other countries are not so fortunate. The Welsh, Scots and Irish all demonstrate thei national inferiority by trying to preserve (or in the case of the Scots invent) obscure languages or dialects that have otherwise been rightfully replaced by English. Indeed in many ways, and nto just linguitically, these nations seem to spend an inordinate amount of time differentiating themselves from the English and claiming that one particularly famous chap was actually not English but rather Welsh, Scottish or Irish. Given the way that England appropriated their chaps in the first place this is probably only fair but none the less it shows up their national lack of confidence, not to mention knowledge that they are not first.
In Europe the same national insecurity frequently manifiests itself in a rather shrill nationalism. In the German case this sometimes boils over into an invasion of France or a gassing of Jews and ever since the latter (invasions of France are nothing to be ashamed of so that doesn't cause any guilt or introspection) they have been terribly scared lest they claim Germany is, as a nation, better than anywhere else. Joking aside, this I think explains why the Germans have tried so hard to make themselves part of a new nation called Europe.
The French on the other hand jump up and down and proclaim the superiority of Liberté Elgalité and Fraternité while bitching about Franglais, Hollywood and other inventions of "les Anglo-Saxons" such as hard work. The French clearly see their inferiority by desperately trying to find ways to protect their culture (or yoghurt) from being taken over by Anglo-Saxon versions.
Most of the little countries that surround Germany tend to get lumped together as "Benelux", "Central Europe" or "Scandinavia" and they clearly have problems differentiating themselves as a result. Sometimes they can be self deprecating, sometimes they can be prickly, but the fact that they rarely expect a visitor to speak their language illustrates that they know they are fighting for at best second place. One country that stands out from the pack, however, is Switzerland. I would say that in their quiet way the Swiss give the English a run for the title of greatest self-belief. The French speaking Swiss do seem to be rather lacking in confidence but their Schwyzer Deutsch speaking confederates are very definitely proud to be who they are and not particularly worried about what others think of them.
One could continue with the rest of Europe, the Middle East and Africa but most of the same arguments apply as the nations mostly define themselves in terms of squabbles with their immediate neighbours and typically they seem to emphasise the negatives, the atrocities committed upon them, rather than the battles they won themselves. Perhaps the only other self confident nation in the region is Israel. It is hard to say whether the leftwing "land for peace" wing with their apologetic behaviour is a majority or not but the rest of the nation seems to demonstrate enough self confidence to make up for them. As with the Swiss the Israelis seem to see themselves as a success and not to feel bound to compare themselves with others.
The interesting discussion concerns East Asia. At first glance the Chinese, for example, appear to be as full of self confidence as the English. Indeed one can look at how China absobed and took credit for various waves of Mongol, Manchu etc. barbarian invader and see echoes with England. The difference I think is the current obsession with Taiwan and to a lesser extent Japan. A more self confident China would not get upset with the posturings of its smaller neighbours but China gets terribly worried about Taiwan potentially declaring independance as a separate nation or by visits by Japanese leaders to Yasukuni Jinja. By doing this China seems to be adopting the "victim" card, something that is rather incongurous in a nation which is an economic and military superpower and one which can lay a good claim to being the source of many of the basic inventions of civilization.
As for the Japanese, there is a very good and disturbingly accurate joke told about the different ways scientists from different countries study elephants. The French scientists study the sex life of the elephant, the American scientists study how they measure up when fighting lions and the Japanese scientists try to discover what the elephant thinks about the Japanese. The Japanese are gradually overcoming their diffidence but, as a nation, Japan shows an astonishing lack of self confidence for its achievements.
The only other nation that seems to be sufficiently self confident is India. I admit to being less that fully informed about the current national mood within India but it seems to me that India, on the whole, is a self confident nation that primarily defines itself on a global stage. This is in contrast to Pakistan which would seem to define itself primarily by its conflict with India. As an Englishman whose ancestors served in India in various fashions I take a certain amount of pride in the fact that India doesn't seem to consider itself a victim of English/European agression...
Finally it occurs to me that I omitted the whole of Central and Southern America from my consideration. From my limited knowledge I would think that Brazil is rather Indian in its self confidence but that all the rest of the region are minnows who primarily define themselves in terms of trivial border squabbles with their neighbours.