Over the past two decades, a series of crises in finance, health, energy and geopolitics have laid bare the risks of extreme global integration. But more recently, great powers have begun using economic integration as weapons, tariffs as leverage, financial infrastructure as coercion, supply chains as vulnerabilities to be exploited.
\nYou cannot live within the lie of mutual benefit through integration, when integration becomes the source of your subordination.
\nThe multilateral institutions on which the middle powers have relied \u2013 the WTO, the UN, the COP \u2013 the architecture, the very architecture of collective problem solving are under threat. And as a result, many countries are drawing the same conclusions that they must develop greater strategic autonomy, in energy, food, critical minerals, in finance and supply chains.
\nAnd this impulse is understandable. A country that can’t feed itself, fuel itself or defend itself, has few options. When the rules no longer protect you, you must protect yourself.
\nBut let’s be clear eyed about where this leads.
\nA world of fortresses will be poorer, more fragile and less sustainable. And there is another truth. If great powers abandon even the pretense of rules and values for the unhindered pursuit of their power and interests, the gains from transactionalism will become harder to replicate.
\nHegemons cannot continually monetize their relationships.
\nAllies will diversify to hedge against uncertainty.
\nThey’ll buy insurance, increase options in order to rebuild sovereignty \u2013 sovereignty that was once grounded in rules, but will increasingly be anchored in the ability to withstand pressure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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