The death of the death of... nationalism?

What good timing! One day after Zeitgeist considers how transport costs might bring an end to our current era of globalization just like the last one, Paul Krugman writes a column about how this era of globalization might be destroyed by a resurgence of nationalism... just like the last one. (Do you think he gets his column ideas from us?)

Anyways, it's a very interesting column and it gives us a chance to continue our "death of the death of" theme here at Zeitgeist. (Ok, last one, I promise.) But I'm not quite sure what Mr. Krugman wants us to take away from it. It's quite pessimistic and seems to lead the reader toward the conclusion that we should somehow 'hedge our bets' on globalization, without quite coming out and saying it.

Yet I know Mr. Krugman is aware that if every country took this logic to its natural conclusion by striving for national self-sufficiency, the 'fragility of globalization' would be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Perhaps he simply meant to highlight the fact that global integration is not the natural state of international relations and is susceptible to nationalism. This is an excellent point that we should take to heart, but precisely because economic globalization is so fragile suggests that we should be doing everything we can to defend it. The alternative is simply worse.

In any case, the situation might not be quite as dire as Mr. Krugman implies. He writes:

And if Russia is willing and able to use force to assert control over its
self-declared sphere of influence, won’t others do the same? Just think about
the global economic disruption that would follow if China — which is about to
surpass the United States as the world’s largest manufacturing nation — were to
forcibly assert its claim to Taiwan.

But as Dan Drezner, aptly points out, China is not Russia, and Taiwan is not Georgia. I'm also not convinced that his point about the food crisis is entirely valid, either:

For years we were told that self-sufficiency was an outmoded concept, and that
it was safe to rely on world markets for food supplies. But when the prices of
wheat, rice and corn soared, Keynes’s “projects and politics” of “restrictions
and exclusion” made a comeback: many governments rushed to protect domestic
consumers by banning or limiting exports, leaving food-importing countries in
dire straits.

This is true, but it's a bit misleading. At least some of the shortage can be attributed to heavily-regulated and closed markets sending inadequate signals to farmers (I'm thinking India and Pakistan especially.) And self-sufficiency is an outmoded concept: a lot of countries don't have enough arable land to produce enough food to survive; others have more than enough. The food crisis was a perfect storm of increasing long-term demand for agricultural commodities combined with poor harvests and exacerbated by government export controls. With the world population expected to hit 9 billion by 2050, now would be a bad time to look for alternatives to international agricultural trade. If anything, we should be looking to improve trade flows by reducing barriers and subsidies (which should allow for the most accurate pricing and price signals in the long term.)

I'll be the first to admit that things are not great in the world at the moment, but let's not throw in the globalization towel just yet.