The End of the World Is Just the Beginning: Mapping the Collapse of Globalization

In the industrial era, railroads were transformative. They could be built anywhere that was relatively flat and reduced the cost of overland transport to only twice that of water transport. Before railroads, Russia could not feed its own population with its grains, but with railroads, Russia sold grain internationally. Water transportation improved greatly in the industrial era, since steel ships could travel faster. The Suez and Panama Canals, opened in 1869 and 1914 respectively, further enhanced trade. Each of these advances made transportation more reliable and less costly. In the industrial era, for “the first time, true international trade in bulk goods was possible” (121). The British, for example, changed their diet between 1850 and 1880 by introducing food from other countries. In addition, transportation improvements enabled people to more easily move from place to place. Urban populations increased. No longer were cities “synonymous with death” (122), as they had better planning and health technologies. In the 1920s, trucks offered another breakthrough in transport, as they could travel anywhere with roads and could deliver goods to inland areas.

Because the globalization after World War II made transportation safe, global trade tripled as a percentage of GDP from what it was in 1919. Safe from the threat of interception, ships could be bigger and slower. The development and use of containers standardized and streamlined the process. Containers need not be opened at port, eliminating the need for handling and warehouses. As a result, small and medium-sized ports closed in favor of fewer and larger ones. The cost of transportation was reduced to one percent of the worth of goods.

Globalization enabled all cities to grow. Food, coal, and people could safely be brought anywhere. Geographic location became less relevant, since all global transport was secure. Consequently, sophisticated multistep supply chains arose, providing both reach and specialization. Technologies became easier to apply but highly specialized. The goods consumed in a given location did not reflect the goods produced there. This global division of labor resulted in the fastest economic growth in history.

Without safe and cheap transport to enable the defining features of the global economy, such as large container ships, massive ports, and a complex division of labor, deindustrialization could happen quickly. The text cites the almost catastrophic impact on the insurance industry when ships were sunk during the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s. However, since 2015, no American ships are in the Persian Gulf region for months at a time. Without American protection, long-haul shipping would become the exception, not the rule. If demographic collapse limits mass consumption, an economic argument for global integration no longer exists.

In the absence of the globalization, Asia’s First Island Chain, including China, and Japan, would experience the most dire consequences. Except for Japan, “none of the local powers has the ability to secure its own supply or trade lines” (140). Additionally, the Persian Gulf, which imports almost everything, could not effectively patrol its coastlines. Europe would confront four problems. First, it depends on Asia for energy. Second, it could not maintain its current form without exports given its demographics. Third, its socialist model depended on the US subsidizing its defense. Finally, the differences among European countries suggest that they would not help one another. The text argues that for globalization to continue without US enforcement, all powers in a region would have to submit to the strongest regional power’s demands, military tools of statecraft would have to be off the table, and dominant regional powers would have to refrain from conflict with one another. All parties complying with all these conditions is unlikely.

The text asserts that the days of long-haul transportation are largely over. Without American protection, ships would be subject to pirates, privateers or pirates acting on behalf of a state, and state piracy. Without bulk shipping, many people would starve. The author posits that ships would become smaller and that more ports would exist, both of which would make shipping costlier. Two types of safe zones would exist for shipping. The first would likely occur in the Western Hemisphere and Northeast Asia if a regional superpower established and enforced regional peace. The second would occur when clusters of countries jointly patrolled their area. For example, the UK and Scandinavia are likely to do so.

The unraveling of globalization would impact each country differently. The least impacted countries would be the US, UK, Japan, France, and Argentina because each has internal waterways and distance from direct threats. The most impacted countries would be those at the end of exposed shipping routes, such as Korea, Poland, China, Germany, Taiwan, Iran, and Iraq. Because supply chains would have to be internal to countries, urbanization would unwind. De-urbanization would hurt China the most, while the US would benefit from its relationship with Mexico, which is demographically stable.