One of underlying questions in part of Battlestar Galactica is the question of whether the human race deserves to survive. The writers toy a bit with the question, which finds its most poignant point during the double assassination ploy by Commander Adama and Admiral Cain (the ploy is resolved by Adama's reflection on whether he or Cain deserves to survive/live on).
This question has applications outside of the BSG series though, one of which is whether any of our nations have a right to survive. Some nations, most notably Israel, vocally and regularly claim this right and that any and all necessary actions to ensure their survival is justified by this right. Other nations implicitly assume this right whether in protest to a broader identity (for example, Basque separatists in Spain or the United States' claims to international exceptionalism) or as a reasonable consequence of their nation's intrinsic value; it should be noted that this value is itself an assumption, and may in some cases only be substantiated within a limited array of perspectives.
When applied to nations rather than individual lifeforms, this question sets up other questions: does a nation truly live? does a nation have a lifespan outside of the humans who claim membership in it? can a nation survive without a population? how do we determine where, chronologically, one nation begins or ends?
Does your nation have a right to exist/survive?
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