International Engagement and Global Stability -- Bringing Countries Along the "J" Curve

I have discussed previously my own view of the critical relationship between the global integration of markets and the essential elements for political stability in international relations.  These have ranged from a post arguing that globalization may be our one hope to create the conditions for a more peaceful world to another suggesting its time to reexamine the U.S.'s longstanding trade embargo of Cuba.  As such, I am always interested in other analyses along these lines and recently came across an extremely articulate one in the form of a preview of a recently published book entitled "The J Curve - A New Way to Understand Why Nations Rise and Fall" by its author Ian Bremmer as published in the current issues of U.S. News & World Report.

Mr. Bremmer begins his piece by discussing on the odd juxtaposition of the internal policies of the tyrannical regimes in Iran and North Korea with the U.S.'s threatened foreign policy response if those nations don't come more into the international fold on the critical issues impacting global stability.  In Iran, the regime has banned western music from its state run media outlets and is looking for more effective ways to jam the airways to prevent outside sources of information from reaching the people.  At the same time, the U.S. is threatening Iran with "isolation from the international community."  Bremmer wryly asks the question, "Who can isolate Iran faster: the U.S. State Department or the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps?"

He makes a similar point with respect to North Korea.  He points out that "the survival of Kim's regime depends on its ability to isolate North Korea and to hide the extent of the country's decay from its people," while at the same time the U.S. has threatened to "further deepen North Korea's isolation."   As Bremmer makes the implicit point, "threatening [Kim] with isolation is like threatening a drowning man with a lifeboat."

Bremmer's thesis is that if a country's possible developmental stages are placed on a graph where the vertical axis measures the country's political and economic stability and the horizontal axis measures the degree of its social and economic openness, the curve would resemble the letter "J".  At one end of the spectrum are states whose very stability depends on an oppressive regime being able to close its people off from international integration so as to avoid the inevitable comparison  between the real state of their existence with that of people in other countries.  On the other end of the spectrum are states that have achieved a high degree of stability because of a broad openness to the free flow of information, goods and capital both internally and among other nations, giving the country the ability to quickly recognize and meet ever changing challenges in the internal and external environments.

Bremmer correctly posits that "the most powerful agents for constructive, sustainable change in any society are the people who live within it."   The effective instigation of change requires policies that shed light upon their disadvantage relative to their international neighbors and empowering them to take action against the repressive regime that is the cause of their isolation from greater opportunity available in the world.  The key to a successful international policy applying the principles implicit in the "J" curve is to know how to assist states mired in repression and recessive development with navigating the "transitional period of dangerous instability" as they move from stability dependent upon repression to stability based on open integration with the international community.   

Based on this preview, I look forward to the publication of Bremmer's book and hope that a few of the isolationists among us take to heart its implications for the unintended consequences of a policy direction which consistently fails to work effectively in a globally integrated world.