The Supply Chain Crisis and the Future of Globalization
Time Governments Reestablish Interconnectedness Instead of Autarky
Last year, as the first COVID-19 vaccines began to roll out, I predicted in Foreign Affairs that the global economy would come roaring back and eventually usher in a new golden age of globalization. That has not yet happened and indeed more fissures seem likely, including a possible war between Russia and Ukraine and intensifying conflicts between Russia and the West. Geopolitical disputes heighten the shortages caused by the continuing pandemic. The supply problems have engendered pervasive nervousness and fear. The induced anxiety, translated into politics, has encouraged the belief that countries need to be self-sufficient. Analysts and policymakers have pushed for autarky or at least imagined splitting the world into competing blocs. They see the interconnectedness of globalization as a vulnerability, subjecting countries to powers and forces beyond national control.
But an autarkic world also has clear limits. The notion that countries can only become resilient through radical self-sufficiency runs up against the need for complex, niche products. Small communities are not going to produce their own clothes, let alone their computers or automobiles. The persistent supply chain crisis poses serious threats to societies everywhere, but the solution to this problem is not for governments to intervene more forcefully in the interest of securing resources, or to wind back globalization. It is instead
