Paul Krugman takes a big-picture look at the war Russo-Georgian war:
[The] war in Georgia isn’t that big a deal economically. But it does mark the end of the Pax Americana — the era in which the United States more or less maintained a monopoly on the use of military force. And that raises some real questions about the future of globalization.
Krugman sees a parallel between our current situation and that of the run-up to the first world war . The globalization that characterized the early 20th century was trampled by the march of nationalism, militarism and imperialism. By the end of WW2, the world was as fragmented as it had ever been. The post-WW2 era was essentially a rebuilding of that earlier globalized world.
“So, can things fall apart again?” Krugman asks. “Yes, they can.”
[Update: Robert Kagan agrees.]
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