Article Analysis of 'The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century'

Globalization is the process by which the markets of different countries become integrated due to the exchange of goods, services, technology, and capital. Globalization depends on social, economic, and political factors, and continuously alters the way that the world works. All the vital components of the evolving global, political, economic and social institutions being examined seem to constantly converge and to perpetually intertwine during the day to day administration of global affairs. Diplomacy is employed to keep a measured balance between conflict and cooperation. The global guarantees of international law are placed in sharp contrast to the grim reality of human rights on daily basis and policy is dictated by the scales of political power and the urgent priorities of economic necessity. To understand how the globe functioned in the past and how it wishes to function in the future, we must study each factor separately and observe its inevitable interactivity with the other factors that occur. It is important to note that none of the dynamics can be given greater weight in comparison to the other crucial instrumentalities.

According to the hegemonic stability theory, “a hegemonic power is necessary to support a highly integrated world economy.” (Nau 2007, 280) Nau explains that as long as there is a relative distribution of power, no one power can affect the system as a whole (280). When there are several equally competitive countries, the global economy reaches the model of a perfect market. Each state acts according to their self-interest, and such behavior leads to higher gains for everyone because “competition maximizes efficiency” (Nau 2007, 280) in a perfect market. However, there is no place for violence in a perfect market because a hegemon assures security by deploying a police force (Nau 2007, 280). Since there is usually no such force in the international system, many competitive nations have to fear violence. This is what the realists meant when they stated that in the multipolar world, nations cannot be sure about alliances. In addition, the United States and the Soviet Union were the two great powers after World War II; thus, they developed an example of a bipolar world, in which there are separate and self-governing “half-world” economies that includes very little trade with each other (Nau 2007, 280).

The author initiates her first argument to be that in reality we are all consumers of war, thus connected to war. We are connected through our investment practices,

In Friedman’s “It’s a Flat World, After All”, Friedman in a trip Bangalore, India accidentally “encountered the flattening of the world”. The following paper will analyze “It’s a Flat World, After All” and the flattening of the world. To conclude the paper I will summarize my thoughts on the flattening of the world.

Friedman explains the diplomacy of the twenty-first century in the following: "The world has become an increasingly, interwoven place, and today, whether you are a company or a country, your threats and opportunities increasingly derive from who you are connected to" (392). Ever since the invention of such advanced systems, it has indeed become easier to enforce power and priority over individuals and nations of lesser power, and it is now possible to engage in war against powerful rivals to a horrific degree. The consistent and credible threat of a nuclear warfare is not too difficult to uphold, despite the distance or the size of the nation. Friedman also mentions the rise of new superpowers such as the global market thanks to the Internet, an easy accessible network with the entire world. With the global market, any company or individual who utilizes this invention is able to easily manipulate the flow of the economy very similarly to how a nation does. Therefore, the potential of a smaller group of people or even an individual can match that of an entire nation. His closing remark introduces a fate which discourages the presence of security which the United States, a nation which gained its independence and security from other national

Former U.S. Secretary of the Navy, Donald C. Winter, in his article “Adapting to the Threat Dynamics of the 21st Century” states that the U.S. military needs to be well prepared for unannounced attacks from “terrorism in Iraq, Afghanistan, and wherever else al-Qaeda and its associates appear.” China and other nation have higher advantages in many key manufacturing areas than U.S. the military needs to have abundant funds, trained soldiers, invest in the air and sea mobility assets, and updated technologies. Winter acknowledges that a temporary reduction in some key manufacturing areas could cause the U.S. industrial stupendous harm. “It is the matter of ensuring the survival of America and the free world.”

There is a solidarity and interdependence about the modern world, both technically and morally, which makes it impossible for any nation completely to isolate itself from economic and political upheavals in the rest of the world, especially when such upheavals appear to be spreading and not declining... We are determined to keep out of war, yet we cannot insure ourselves against the disastrous effects of war and the dangers of involvement. We are adopting such measures as will minimize our risk of involvement, but we cannot have complete protection in a world of disorder in which confidence and security

My final example, the reason there was war while trading also leads to when the trades are being attacked leads to the ones that are trading defend themselves. when it comes to defending themselves it leads to a bigger and bigger wars what i mean by defending they call their allies. that makes the enemies call their allies and it gets to a huge war and from what i have heard there could’ve been up to 20 or more countries at war during the trade and war. no one knows how many casualties there were some people would just disappear some soldiers were never

The world is not a large and strange place anymore. The world is a place that is interconnected and intertwined. The world has become from a place that each country and their peoples are separate and isolated to a place that each country and their peoples are part of a global network. Thanks to globalization this is occurring. Globalization is the ‘international integration” or ‘de-bordering’ – “a number of highly disparate observations whose regular common denominator is the determination of a profound transformation of the traditional nation-state” (Von Bogdandy 2). Globalization is connecting different people from different cultures and backgrounds together. More and more corporations are entering new foreign markets to sell their

In this chapter, Thomas Friedman looks at how cultures and societies will have to deal with and adapt to the changes that globalization brings to the way of doing business. It affects whole companies and individuals. He gives the perception of the world is flattening by comparing the Industrial Revolution to the IT Revolution that is happening right now. The flattening process was identified by Karl Marx and Frederich Engels in the Communist Manifesto, published in 1848. Marx’s writings about capitalism state “the inexorable march of technology and capital to remove all barriers, boundaries, frictions, and restraints to global commerce (Friedman 234).”

In Tomas Barnett’s “The Pentagon’s New Map: It explains why we’re going to war and why we’ll keep going to war,” the author provides an analysis regarding the relationship between globalization and future U.S. military engagements. The author contends that the future strategic framework of United States military operations will be heavily focused on nations that have not integrated the principles of globalization and continue to foster socio-economic instability, lack of security, and failed political structure.

Thousands of years ago, people have been interacting with each other at distance, such as through the Silk Road, which connects Asia and Europe. Nowadays, driven by international trade and information technology, the interaction, in other words globalization, has been spurred. Globalization has effects on culture, on political systems, and on economic development around the world. In “My Summer at an Indian Call Center”, Andrew Marantz recounts his experiences working at a call center in India and explores the cultural effects of globalization. Thomas Friedman, on the other hand, looks into the impacts that globalization has on economy.

In Thomas Friedman’s The World Is Flat he presents his idea of the globalization of the world in all areas; from economic to communication with other countries. Friedman is a journalist from the New York Times and most of his work focuses on economic and technological innovations and advancements, and furthermore how they are associated to history. The ideas he presents in this book are both plausible and convincing. The main focus is whether the world is “flat“. The answer to this question depends on the readers’ political, economical, and technological opinions. Friedman does however present evidence in many situations where the globalization of the world is clearly evident. This essay will explore these different

Author Thomas L. Friedman analyses the technological advances that are creating a level economic playing field with previously disadvantaged countries rising in knowledge and wealth rivaling that of the United States and other world powers in the world. Telephone and computer technology, previously a stronghold only of developed countries, is now easily accessible and has been accessed and mastered by countries such as China and India, making these nations competitive. Friedman perceives the flattening effect as so insightful as to be compared in scope to the Industrial Revolution.

In the new global economy, the US may no longer easily dominate. As a result of the flat world, new parts of the world are beginning to successfully compete. Two of the more powerful ones are India and China. These emerging nations are now competing not just for low-wage manufacturing and information labor but, increasingly, for the highest-end research and design work as well. As Friedman mentions in his triple convergence, roughly 3 billion people from India, Russia, Eastern Europe, Latin America and Asia are now joining this, "plug and play" world in which they can basically compete and collaborate equally. While these nations certainly pose a threat to historical U.S. and European prosperity and power, the proper response is not to fight it, but rather to embrace it, in order to thrive in the new world.