The Next 'Berlin Wall Moment'

Thomas P.M. Barnett, Ian Bremmer and Alexander Kliment, Nikolas Gvusdev, Walter Russell Mead, Jaqueline Newmyer | World Politics Review | 2009-11-25

Twenty years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, WPR asked six prominent commentators what feature of today's geopolitical landscape might not be as durable as we imagine. Thomas P.M. Barnett, Ian Bremmer and Alexander Kliment, Nikolas Gvosdev, Walter Russell Mead, and Jacqueline Newmyer examine The Next "Berlin Wall Moment."

The Austin Accords of March, 2031
By Thomas P.M. Barnett
AUSTIN, Texas -- Official representatives from the Tejas Confederation, the Northern Alliance of Mexican States, and the U.S. government signed a comprehensive treaty that will immediately "re-admit" the Tejas states to the American union, and submit to Congress formal pleas for new statehood on behalf of Baja California, Sonora, Chihuahua, Coahuila and Nuevo Leon.

State Capitalism and the Future of Globalization
By Ian Bremmer and Alexander Kliment
When the Berlin Wall finally fell, a new set of certainties about the global political and economic order was born. And none has been more pervasive or enduring than the belief that the spread of markets and the advance of globalization are irreversible, even inevitable. But 20 years later, there is reason to question our assumptions.

Outlasting the Opening of the Korean DMZ
By Nikolas Gvosdev
In the euphoria that followed the fall of the Berlin Wall, we forget that prior to 1989, the division of Europe into two blocs, East and West, was seen as a permanent feature of the international order. America's own security architecture throughout the Pacific Ocean basin may now be based on similarly impermanent divisions in Asia.

The End of the Asian Miracle
By Walter Russell Mead
Anything that threatens the rise of Asia, the balance between its superpowers or the links between Asia's rising power and its increasing integration into the world system would shake our world to its foundations. Unfortunately, the possibility is far from remote: We may be headed toward just this kind of shock.

When the CCP Loses the 'Mandate of Heaven'
By Jacqueline Newmyer
Today, many American foreign affairs experts appear to assume that the Chinese Communist Party will remain in power indefinitely. As a result, we are collectively failing to consider how a political collapse in China could create dynamics to which the United States would be compelled to respond.

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