Category:Multinational Alliances

From Gothpoodle

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Latest revision as of 13:29, 14 June 2010

The peak of the nation-state was probably in the middle years of the 20th century, when national governments were at their most intrusive and the most powerful nations competed for control of the entire world. Since then, social and economic trends have caused much of the power once held by nations to move to other levels of organization.

One aspect of this change has been the movement of sovereign power upward, from nation-states to the level of regional organizations. As the world grows more interdependent, many nations have found it useful to form partnerships with their neighbors. Free-trade zones and customs unions allow neighbors to trade more efficiently among themselves (and compete more effectively against outsiders). Law-enforcement agreements help control criminals who would otherwise flee across national borders with impunity. Military alliances help nations to defend against more powerful rivals. Nations which share an unpopular ideology can band together to prevent outside interference in their social arrangements. All of these relationships lead nation-states to hand over some sovereign authority to their partners.

This process was already under way in the 20th century, but it has accelerated. Today three out of six of the world’s Great Powers are not nation-states, but alliances in which no one nation dominates. The European Union was originally a simple free-trade zone, but over the past decades the E.U. nations have integrated most of their legal, law-enforcement and defensive arrangements as well. The Transpacific Socialist Alliance is an ideological bloc, devoted to promoting and defending nanosocialism. Finally, the Pacific Rim Alliance is a military partnership, allowing its members to defend against possible Chinese or TSA aggression.