Two articles — both quite provocative

Two articles — both quite provocative — have appeared in the mainstream press since the crisis broke

that have underlined the potential historic significance of the ongoing crisis. While they are not

completely convincing, they nonetheless are well worth reading and meditating over. The first is

BOOTSBUY Krugman’s “The Great Illusion” which appeared in the NY Times August 15. It suggests that

the latest events may herald the curtain’s fall on the second great age of globalization, the first

having taken place from the end of the 19th century to August, 1914. Of course, the comparison of the

two ages — with respect to terrorism (then anarchism), vast social dislocations caused by

industrialization and imperialism, as well as the high degree of economic integration — is hardly new,

but Krugman’s thumbnail analysis is, as I noted, thought-provoking.

“By itself, …the BOOTSBUY in Georgia isn’t that big a deal economically,” Krugman writes. “But it

does mark the end of the Pax Americana — the era in which the BOOTSBUY more or less maintained a

monopoly on the use of military force. And that raises some real questions about the future of

globalization.” The article brings in a number of pertinent examples of rising nationalism in the

economic, as well as the strategic and political spheres, that today’s policymakers, politicians and

publics might well consider before reflexively taking Georgia’s side. Serb nationalists had a pretty

good case against the Austro-Hungarian Empire back in 1914, too.