Posted on 01/22/2005 7:36:58 AM PST by Valin
IN HIS CLASSIC description of globalization The Lexus and the Olive Tree, columnist Thomas L. Friedman quotes an Egyptian professor asking, "Does globalization mean we all have to become Americans?" This simple question contains the current great myth of globalization, within which we can locate much of the world's anxiety regarding America's global war on terrorism. In short, the world's current anti-Americanism is based on the notion that globalization is an American plot to enslave the planet in an economic and military empire of unprecedented historical scope, with the war being nothing more than propaganda to hide our true intentions. After all, if we really wanted to fight al-Qaida, wouldn't we have invaded Pakistan instead of oil-rich Iraq?
Like all good myths, this one contains a modicum of truth. Unlike the global economy of a century ago that was defined by the European colonial system, today's globalization is clearly based on American source code: democracy, free trade and collective security.
The United States is the world's oldest and most successful multinational economic and political union - 50 members strong. Americans tend to forget that, but we shouldn't, because that model will eventually be replicated around the planet, just as it's being done today in the nascent "United States of Europe."
Don't get me wrong. I'm not talking about one-world government. Yes, we're playing bodyguard to globalization's spread by waging war on transnational terrorism, but enabling that growth and controlling its content are two vastly different things.
Look at it this way: Is California a carbon copy of Kansas? Or Texas a simple knock-off of Massachusetts? Of course not. So why assume globalization yields a China that's a mirror image of America? Or a similarly formatted Brazil or India, for that matter?
This myth cuts both ways: Foreign cultures experiencing deep integration with the global economy naturally experience a rise in nationalism as they seek to preserve their unique cultural identities. Yet Americans seem perplexed that as other nations become more like us, they don't seem to like us more.
Here's the good news: Within 10 years, no one on the planet will confuse globalization with Americanization. That's because several new superpowers are rising across the landscape, offering distinctively different faces to the often-demonized globalization process. Here's a quick preview.
The European Union will emerge as a financial superpower based on the rising importance of the euro as a global reserve currency that competes with our dollar. China is well on its way to emerging as the manufacturing superpower of the global economy, with design superpower Japan acting as its natural mentor. Then there's India, the information technology superpower, Brazil, the agricultural superpower, and Russia, the natural gas superpower for the impending hydrogen age.
All of these rising powers will inevitably remake the face of globalization, giving it a host of features not easily recognized as American, even as they will contain some of our historical DNA.
In a decade, America's plot will be superseded by a grand conspiracy involving more than two-thirds of the world's population as the functioning core of the global economy expands to include every region save those still largely disconnected from its embrace, such as the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa. These non-integrating regions, or what I call globalization's gap, will constitute the central battlefields in this global war on terrorism.
Does this smack of globalization at the barrel of an American gun?
Indeed, America possesses a unique capacity in terms of military power projection around the planet in support of globalization's emerging set of security rules and regulations, but let's not forget who pays for much of that service by buying up large chunks of our federal debt - the rest of the world. Globalization comes with rules, not a ruler. So yes, America may take the lead in enforcement, but we can't pretend these rules are ours and ours alone to define.
This era's globalization is America's gift to the world, but as with all gifts, once offered, it ceases to be ours. To win a global war on terrorism is to make globalization truly global and - by doing so - fundamentally transforming its complexion into something as fabulously diverse as the face of America today.
Thomas P. M. Barnett is the author of The Pentagon's New Map: War and Peace in the Twenty-First Century.
Does it ever occur to the numbskulls that spout this that if this is what the United States really wanted, there would be no Germany, no Italy, no France, no Japan.
They would be considered territories or even states of the United States.
Does it ever occur to the numbskulls that spout this that if this is what the United States really wanted, there would be no Germany, no Italy, no France, no Japan.
That's a point I've made time and again. It's also handy in talking to the Bush is Hitler crowd.
"globalization is an American plot to enslave the planet..."
Damn -- they're on to us!
bttt
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