Shevardnadze’s (read Gorbachev’s)nattempted act of intimidation didn’tnwork this time. Lucky us. But we havenbeen given fair warning once more.nNegotiating treaties with the USSR isn•the riskiest enterprise in modern treatyndiplomacy because the Soviet leadershipnwill use every trick, every stratagemnto betray, breach, circumvent, ornnegate Soviet agreements, yet all theirnduplicities will be forgotten. The tow­nPrincipalities & Powersnby Samuel FrancisnD espite the zippity-doo-dah rhetoricnthat many conservatives have spoutednfor the last decade, the United States innthe 1990’s will encounter challengesnthat neither the “right” nor the “left” isnprepared to recognize, much less meet.nThe challenges go far beyond then”relative decline” that Paul Kennedy’snThe Rise and Fall of the Great Powersnprophesied in 1988. Mr. Kennedy arguednonly that the United States wouldnbe unable to keep pace with the redistributionnof economic power towardnthe Pacific Rim and the transfer ofnmilitary might that will follow it. Hennever broached the much more seriousnthreats that today signify the rapidnunraveling of American society: highnschool and college students who don’tnknow when Columbus discovered thenNew World and who think the slogansnof Karl Marx are drawn from the USnConstitution; urban murder rates thatneven idiots savants would find difficultnto calculate; drug wars fought withnarsenals the Vietcong would have envied;npolitical corruption that makesnthe senators of ancient Rome look likenEliot Ness’s picked men; and a populationnso frightened of thrift and sacrificenand so addicted to instant gratificationnthat it often prefers foregoing reproductionnaltogether to the responsibilitynof bearing and raising children.nYet these signs of moral and socialndecomposition are not as alarming asnthe prospect, celebrated vociferouslynby right and left alike, of the UnitednStates’ speedy absorption into a transnationalnor global economy that threatensnto extinguish American nationalnand cultural identity itself Ignorance,ncrime, corruption, and avarice are vicesn10/CHRONICLESnering dilemma for the West is that innthe world today arms control negotiationsnwith the Soviet Union are unavoidable,ninevitable, and, above all,npotentially detrimental to the securityninterests of the free world.nAny skepticism regarding my thesisnabout faith in Soviet treaty promisesnshould be tempered by the followingnfact: from November 20, 1984, whennThe Wall Street Journal first called thenthat can be cured, regardless of howndrastic the medicine. The danger ofneconomic globalism is that, like thenAIDS virus, it destroys the very mechanismsnthat enable the patient to recover,neven as it entices him into thenillusion that the disease is harmless.nThat illusion is the dream of universalnmaterial acquisition that has animatednthe consolidation of the AmericannRepublic into what may be calledn”MacNation,” a colossal aggregatenbound together not by any naturalnsense of historic community butnthrough the artificial bonds imposed bynbureaucratic routines and disciplines,ncorporate market strategies, mass media,nand the mass collective channels innwhich millions of Americans move,nwork, play, eat, spend, vote, and communicatendaily. Having broken downnthe institutional distinctions and regionalndiversity that once characterizednthe Republic and its cultural identity,nthe dream and its current materialnincarnation in economic globalism arennow in the process of folding Mac-nNation into MacPlanet.nLast March, the prominent Japaneseneconomist and management consultantnKenichi Ohmae told an audiencenat Washington’s Institute fornInternational Economics that “nationalnborders are disappearing,” a developmentnMr. Ohmae welcomes, at leastnfor other peoples’ nations, even asntraditional Japanese nationalism enjoysna renaissance. Many- self-proclaimednconservatives greeted Mr. Ohmae’snprediction with hearty approval, andnThe Wall Street Journal’s Walter S.nMossberg reported on the appearancenof conservative “one-worlders,” “economistsnand academics who believe thatnin a global economy, with goods andnespecially capital surging across politi­nnnKrasnoyarsk radar “a clear-cut Sovietnviolation” of the ABM Treaty, untilnOctober 24, 1989, Soviet spokesmennlied about the installation. It took fivenyears for the Soviet Union to admitnthat the Krasnoyarsk radar was indeed anviolation. The confession recalls somethingnAlain Besangon, the French Sovietologistnand historian, once said: “InnRussia, even the truth is a lie.”n—Arnold Beichmanncal borders, the economic fortunes ofnindividual countries aren’t importantnanymore.”nBut if national borders aren’t importantnanymore, neither are trade deficits,nor mass migrations, or even “nationalninterests.” The same logic that dismissesnborders and populations as meaningfulnfeatures of national identity alsonimplies that the nation itself is annartificial abstraction that can possess noninterests for which individual “citizens”n(another artifice) should be expectednto sacrifice. It’s no accident thatnthe “conservatives” who sing the progressivenUtopia of the global economynare usually the same ones who droolnover a Wilsonian “global democracy”nin place of concrete national interestsnas the proper goal of our foreign policy.nIndeed, the ideology of economicnglobalism logically involves a kind ofnsocial and political nominalism thatndenies any meaning to groups smallernthan “humankind.” Not only nationsnbut also classes, ethnic groups, religiousnsects, local communities, andnfamilies are artificial identities thatnmerely thwart the fulfillment of universalist,ncosmopolitan, humanist perfectionnand that have about as muchnpermanency as a group of Las Vegasnpoker players. Contemporary globalism,neconomic or democratist, right ornleft, has a remote ancestor in thenruminations of the ancient Stoics, whonargued for a “city of the world” thatnwould transcend city-states and empires.nCloser relatives are the politicalnfantasies of the Enlightenment andntheir Marxist derivative that “the internationalnparty shall be the humannrace.” But whatever despots the universalistndream could inspire in earlierneras, only in this century has it beennable to assume the technological andn