Is globalization a cure for unrest? Wall Street Journal Questions and Concerns
Economic globalization should have made wars more difficult to start. Instead … The Wall Street Journal analysis
Economic globalization should have made wars more difficult to start. What if the experience with Russia right now is proving that globalization actually makes them harder to prevent?
For at least the last decade, a prevailing theory in international affairs has been that economic interdependence around the world makes conflicts less likely. If everyone is financially linked as never before, then everyone would suffer from large-scale conflict. Therefore, no one would take this possibility lightly. Economic ties would help ensure peace.
But Russian leader Vladimir Putin could turn this equation upside down by moving 100,000 troops to Ukraine's border and threatening an invasion. Knowing that a move on Ukraine would have ripple effects in the world's ever-narrowing economic village, primarily by threatening the thin Russian energy line on which Europe depends, Putin could calculate that interdependence works to his advantage. Taking control of Ukraine is so important to him that he is willing to pay the cheap price; preventing him from doing so is not so important to the West that it is willing to pay the price.
Indeed, the Wall Street Journal reported that while the US is loudly threatening tough economic reprisals against Moscow for any move on Ukraine, it is also reluctant to take steps to curb Russian energy exports or to expel Russia from the country. dollar-denominated international financial system.
Because? Because, in today's global energy market, such moves would risk raising energy prices for US consumers in a period of already high inflation, also damaging the economies of European allies with much broader commercial and financial links with the Russia.
The Biden administration has begun an intense week of diplomacy designed to avoid a Russian move to Ukraine, so this test of will may be nearing its climax. It cannot be a coincidence that Putin has threatened Ukraine now, in the dead of winter, when Europe's need for Russian gas is highest and public fears of losing access to that gas, and the resulting global effects, are greater.
It is not just energy that gives Russia leverage in a globalized economy. The head of the British armed forces warned Russia over the weekend against any attempt to cut the undersea communications cables on which the world financial system increasingly depends.
These fears were certainly less acute during the Cold War, when the world had limited economic interaction with the Soviet Union. Globalization may have given Putin more of a stake in economic stability, but it has also given him more influence than his Kremlin predecessors.
And if this is true in the case of a potential conflict with Russia, imagine what it would be like with China. The economic cost of a conflict for Chinese aggression would be truly catastrophic, precisely because the economic intertwining is so great.
Chinese leaders certainly know this – and they may even conclude that this cost is so high that the rest of the world wouldn't bother taking the kind of steps needed to stop, for example, a Chinese invasion of Taiwan.
If taking control of Ukraine is so important to Russia, and taking control of Taiwan is so important to China, they may be more willing to pay the economic price to achieve their goals than the West to stop them. And because they run authoritarian regimes willing to crush any internal unhappiness over the economic effects of their choices, they may conclude – perhaps correctly – that they can bear economic pain more easily than those who try to stop them.
In this sense, economic globalization could have an asymmetrical effect on the balance of power, to the detriment of the United States and its allies, and of democracies in general.
Of course, autocrats might also miscalculate in this game. A recent spate of unrest in Kazakhstan, a Russian ally running a similar regime, illustrates that economic dissatisfaction at home is not always without cost, even for dictators. Popular unrest broke out in Kazakhstan after the government raised fuel prices, and from there they shot up in an avalanche.
However, Kazakhstan may also end up showing how dictators can stifle economic dissatisfaction in the bud. Russia rushed in troops to help Kazakh leader Kassym-Jomart Tokayev crush the unrest. Kazakhstan may end up illustrating the cost that even strongmen pay internally for economic suffering, but it may also demonstrate how effective they are in limiting this cost.
Richard Haass, the chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations, warned last week of a world in growing disorder, noting in particular that Putin "has shown that he is comfortable using military force, energy supplies and cyber attacks to destabilize the countries and governments that it sees as adversaries ”. Economic globalization, it seems, is not a cure for unrest.
(Extract from the foreign press review by eprcomunicazione )
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/mondo/la-globalizzazione-e-una-cura-per-i-disordini-domande-e-dubbi-del-wall-street-journal/ on Sun, 16 Jan 2022 06:55:44 +0000.