How Will the US Jump from Globalization to Globalism?

In the era of President Obama, we observe that the United States has started to move from globalization to globalism, toward a global unity in decision making, goals and work. We discovered under George Bush, Jr., that the United States is not a major state and superpower in and of itself, but rather is a major state and superpower in an alliance with the world.

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In the ‘90s of the last century, the United States led the world toward globalization and rendering borders and barriers null in the face of the global economy, and toward the establishment of enormous, transcontinental companies.

That was after the 1991 Gulf War, when President Bush, Sr., established an “international coalition” to remove Saddam Hussein from Kuwait. This operation was carried out successfully; the world came out of it convinced that military globalization had succeeded brilliantly. So why shouldn’t we embrace the economic globalization later led by the Democratic Party with Clinton at its head? Then economic cooperation started with China. The result of that was China becoming the United States’ factory and the United States China’s consumer! Most large U.S. companies moved their factories to China, which has cheap labor, is systematized and is amazingly productive, as we now see through its products and goods widespread everywhere in the world. These U.S. companies made little of the U.S. national interest to achieve greater profits for investors. In the end, this caused the bankruptcy and collapse of the U.S. economy and increases in unemployment rates, as we now see. This came at the same time that U.S. companies contributed to the Chinese revival and Chinese economic growth without the U.S. government being able to do a thing. That is one of the most dangerous ills of the free-market, freedom from all regulations.

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Globalization was intensely resisted in the Arab world without the Arab world understanding globalization’s long term goal. For in the Arab world, there are political and religious movements that consider anything coming from the United States to be harmful, repugnant and detrimental to the Arabs. Discussion of globalization in the Arab world at the end of the 20th century came to resemble a great, mass panic more than anything else. It was as if a bomb of massive impact had been dropped on the Arab world and exploded and shrapnel from it was scattered everywhere in the Arab world, even in the places that are still living under medieval regimes politically, socially, culturally and economically.

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Globalization as the American undertaking was on this basis repudiated, scorned and accused of several things in the Arab world. The accusations include that globalization is the codename for Americanization, that globalization is international relations ruled by the law of the jungle in the world of the jungle and that globalization is a destructive American project, etc. Despite all of this, we have found globalization to be the natural need of humanity in the 21st century, and thanks to globalization, we in the Arab world have come to consume American products made in China with raw materials procured from the Middle East or Southeast Asia and with petro-energy made in with Iraq, Libya, Algeria or the Gulf.

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In the era of President Obama, we observe that the United States has started to move from globalization to globalism, toward global unity in decision-making, goals and work. We discovered under George Bush, Jr., that the United States is not a major state and superpower in and of itself, but rather a major state and superpower in an alliance with the world, including its enemies (North Korea, Iran, Syria and the like). We also discovered that the United States is responsible for the world in its agreement with this world and its economic and military aid to this world — whether we like it or not. When the United States coughs, the world is stricken with severe influenza. This became certain in the financial crisis that inundated the United States in late 2008 and in 2011-2012, whose effect on and implications in the world were enormous and grave.

While convening the G-20’s London meeting in 2009, Obama said: “We have learned that the success of the American economy is inextricably linked to the global economy. There is no line between action that restores growth within our borders and action that supports it beyond. If people in other countries cannot spend, markets dry up. We’ve already seen the biggest drop in American exports in nearly four decades, which has led directly to American job losses.”* On account of that, the United States started extending a hand of cooperation to enemy and friend alike, since the United States is now in several predicaments and military and economic difficulties. It will not get out of its predicaments except by cooperating with the world, which is in a relationship of give and take with the United States that is not the case with any other country.

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Thus, the United States under Obama has moved from the stage of globalization to the stage of globalism. And the globalism that Obama is calling for is not what we have read in the books of past economists and politicians, with the principles of the invasion of nations, the seizure of lands and the degradation of peoples. Rather, this globalism — in Obama’s understanding — is defined by the following actions:

1. Dealing boldly for the sake of rescuing the U.S. economy from crisis and reforming the U.S. system of oversight;

2. Achieving stability in the U.S. financial system;

3. [Making] economic, security-based and moral commitments to lend a helping hand to countries and peoples facing greater risks;

4. Supporting new investments in the field of food security;

5. Putting an end to the methods of reckless speculation;

6. And finally, all U.S. financial institutions need strong oversight and judicious rules for their work. And there should be criteria for stability and a disclosure mechanism within all the markets.