Will the Atlantic become wider or narrower?

Before September 11, analysts and journalists had been talking about how relations between the United States and its European allies were getting colder and colder. After the terrorist attacks, Transatlantic relations were reaffirmed in the spirit of the fight against terrorism. How wide will be the Atlantic in the future? (See Karsten D. Voigt, Wird der Atlantik breiter? and Karsten D. Voigt, Gemeinsam gegen Terrorismus)

Should NATO be abolished?

Many claim that with the end of Cold War hostility and bipolarity, NATO should cease to exist since it was created in the context of the Cold War and has thus lost its original mission. Others believe that NATO had won the Cold War in 1989, therefore it should remain the principle security organization globally. Even others believe that the Atlantic Alliance should include other global or regional powers; while analyst James Chace asserted that Russia should become part of NATO, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon recently claimed that the alliance should admit all global powers (including Russia, India and China) into the organization.

The Lexus and the Olive Tree

Is this the clash of globalization? The fight between traditions and modernity? Thomas Friedman concludes that there has not been any war between countries that have McDonald's since they got McDonald's, and therefore, the process of globalization is inevitable and mostly positive. Many critique his views as those of a journalist who spends most of his time in luxurious hotels and keeps sending back oranges he does not like. Still, others feel we need to listen to Friedman¹s ideas to grasp the meaning of today's international tendencies. See information about the book.

Globalization and Its Opponents

Globalization, especially its economic effects, is a phenomenon that has provoked a protest movement as strong and as international as no political movement since the students¹ movement in 1968 and on. In fact, many tenants of anti-globalizationist protesters are similar to those of the 1968 generation: anti-big business sentiment, anti-multinational feeling, environmental issues, gender and race equality, pacifism. Some of the main targets of the movement have been such global financial and economic organizations as the World Trade Organization, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Recently, the movement has emphasized its pacifist ideology in the light of the September 11 attacks and the Afghanistan war, although some analysts brought up the current relative silence around these groups. See Michael Inacker¹s German-language analysis Glas und Beton.

The Domino Effect

World economy has been in recession for years now and economists pointed out that, due to the global nature of the money market, one leading country's decline triggers hardships in all the other leading economies. These interdependent leading states are Germany, France, Great Britain, the euro region in general, the United States, Japan, the Far Eastern small tigers, India, etc. The shocking events of September 11 raised speculations that the recession could now even deepen and short-term solutions did not exist. It is interesting to read how the functioning of the global economy was seen by Christian Tenbrock and Wolfgang Uchatius in their article Der Domino-Effekt written prior to September 11.

Scenes From A Marriage

Many equate globalization with Americanization, and even many others claim that economic globalization means American takeover of major business interests in most of the countries of the world. Nevertheless, the all-powerful businesses of our age came to be called by the name multinationals on the basis of their venues of functioning, and not by American corporations since their ownership is usually heterogeneous. German-American economic relations were long determined by American dominance in certain areas of the German market. In the last decades, this has seemed to turn around or at least to even out since German business interest has taken over many formerly American companies or possessions. This has been particularly visible in the automobile industry. Peter Schneider tells the story of the interactive nature of economic and cultural globalization (including cultural conflicts) in his account of the recent Daimler-Chrysler merger Scenes From A Marriage which appeared in the New York Times Magazine¹s August 12 issue.