Connecting the Globe After “Globalization”

American interests are advanced by connecting the world’s free and open spaces through enhancing connectivity, buoying regional aspirations for peace and prosperity, and denying operational space to revisionist actors.

Globalization—characterized by chasing the lowest costs of production, including in rival countries’ territory—is at an end. Yet, this does not signal a cessation or slowdown of global commerce and trade. On the contrary, global engagement and interconnectedness are still the bedrock of peace and prosperity. In large measure, the future global economic and security architecture will be shaped by diverse, resilient, and trusted connectivity between the Indo-Pacific and Mediterranean-Atlantic (Med-Atlantic) regions.

Shinzo Abe, the late Japanese prime minister, articulated a vision for a “free and open Indo-Pacific region” that is not beholden to any coercive sphere of influence. One of the virtues of the “free and open” notion is its adaptability to different regional characteristics. Most populations aspire to live in free and open societies, achieving prosperity through free and open markets. Some nations and regions may interpret the concept of “free and open” as a positive and normative state of being. Others may interpret it primarily as the absence of coercion from malign actors.

Trusted connectivity across digital or physical infrastructures is built on two pillars. It calls for the implementation of the best industry standards and, more importantly, governance by laws and institutions that accord with and are accountable to individual dignity and freedom. Countries like China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea fall substantially short on the second tenet. Nations adhering to both tenets of trusted connectivity will increasingly devise procedures and rules to prioritize trusted commercial and security engagements among like-minded nations.

A framework for “free and open” connectivity is not a one-size-fits-all model; rather, it derives its strength and resilience organically from shared regional characteristics and perspectives that continue to evolve. One of the common themes across the regional variance is the primacy of sovereignty and strategic autonomy, unencumbered by the pressures of influence-peddling regional bullies.

Rebuilding Old Roads 

In recent years, historical corridors where commercial and cultural exchanges traversed for centuries are witnessing a reinvigoration, giving new energy to the world’s free and open spaces. For example, the Indo-Mediterranean maritime pathways—connecting key points across Asia, the Middle East, and Europe—are enjoying renewed attention. During the Roman Empire’s heyday, nearly one-third of its annual revenue was derived from customs levies on trade with India and Persia. Indeed, outside of the territory of the erstwhile empire, the highest concentrations of Roman coins can be found in the Indian subcontinent—a testament to the once-flourishing and deep-rooted interconnectedness between them.

India, through much of the first two millennia, accounted for anywhere between a quarter and one-third of global wealth, and that wealth propelled Indo-Mediterranean trade. William Dalrymple’s 2024 book, The Golden Road, provides a vivid account of the historical Indo-Roman and Indo-Asian commerce that thrived throughout Classical Antiquity and the Middle Ages.

India—the world’s fastest-growing large economy and the third largest by 2030—is once again well positioned to propel trade with West Asia and Europe and usher in a “new Golden Road.” In 2023, during India’s presidency of the G20, the United States, European Union, Italy, Germany, France, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, and India launched the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC). This promising initiative aims to enhance trade and transit connectivity across the Middle East beyond the Suez Canal by developing complementary road and rail networks across the Arabian Peninsula.

This will likely incentivize Iraq and Turkiye to do the same along the Euphrates watershed and the Mediterranean. IMEC was made possible by the diplomatic rapprochement between Israel and the UAE through the Abraham Accords. This regional breakthrough may include Saudi Arabia in the near future, which would further strengthen the commercial linkages between the Gulf and Mediterranean regions.

A fully realized thoroughfare for Indo-Mediterranean commerce may present an extraordinary opportunity for economic growth and prosperity for the people of Jordan, Israel, and Palestine, connected as they are by shared history and common aspirations. A rapprochement between Iran and Israel, as far off as it may seem, would be a historic game changer for the mushrooming Indo-Mediterranean trade and commerce.

Poland, the largest of the rapidly growing economies of Europe, shares a fundamental interest with other Central and Eastern European nations in improving north-south connectivity between the Baltic and the Adriatic Seas. By doing so, it can resurrect the Amber Road traversed by Vikings and the Hanseatic League throughout the Middle Ages. The economic imperative of modernizing the physical and digital infrastructures between the two seas is further reinforced by the security demands for military mobilization along the NATO front, from the Baltic to the Black Sea.

The northern Adriatic Sea is poised to play a pivotal role in linking the resurgence of the Indo-Mediterranean region with Central and Eastern Europe, thereby achieving an extraordinary cumulative impact. Two other variables may amplify the impact further. First, there is an increasing convergence of commercial and security interests among the Baltic and Arctic regions across the Free North, spanning Finland, Iceland, Greenland, and North America. Second, a Central Asia-Caucasus-European corollaryto IMEC that resuscitates the historical commercial and cultural connections across the Eurasian continent that thrived much of the second millennium. The latter places a premium on ensuring an open Black Sea, connecting Europe with the Caucasus and across the Caspian Sea to Central Asia.

A convergence of the revitalized “Golden” (Indo-Mediterranean), “Amber” (Balto-Adriatic), and “Silk” (Central Asia-Caucasus) roads will integrate the free and open spaces from the Indo-Pacific to the Atlantic.

Connecting the Indo-Pacific and Med-Atlantic

Closer connections between the free and open spaces of the Indo-Pacific and the Mediterranean-Atlantic (Med-Atlantic) regions, from the Pacific Islands to the Caribbean, are positioned to shape the future. Three geopolitical projects can bring this about: the Quad, IMEC, and the New Atlantic Charter. It is in the interest of the United States to serve as the driving force behind all three developments, bolstering inter-regional linkages and catalyzing this transformation.

The Quad is likely to evolve from an informal partnership to an institutional apparatus that can preserve and promote Indo-Pacific autonomy. Motivated by a strong collective interest, the Quad is on a trajectory of becoming an enduring institution in the emerging “new old world.” The partnership has already borne fruit, including in the collective response to the COVID-19 Pandemic, better coordination in engaging ASEAN and the Pacific Island nations, and in providing security and development across the Indian Ocean.

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The Quad’s primacy in US foreign policy transcends political parties and administrations. One of the first moves of the second Trump administration was to host a meeting of the Quad foreign ministers, chaired by US Secretary of State Marco Rubio. The Quad is diligently engaging with like-minded states in the Quad-Plus club, including countries such as Indonesia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam.

The IMEC eight—the European Union, France, Germany, India, Italy, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States—in coordination with Egypt, Israel, and Turkiye are set to reaffirm the Indo-Mediterranean as the primary economic and security corridor linking the free and open spaces of Asia and Europe. It is in the economic and security interest of each IMEC signatory to invest in the initiative’s optimal success. Additionally, IMEC offers an extraordinary opportunity for African nations to integrate their growing economies into one of the world’s largest and most vibrant economic corridors.

IMEC offers a timely boost for the African eastern seaboard to resurrect its historic maritime trade and commerce with India and the Gulf nations. As mentioned earlier, IMEC also offers ballast for the growth of Central and Eastern Europe, as well as the resurgent Central Asia-Caucasus-Europe economic corridor. Importantly, IMEC emphasizes the need to protect the  Black Sea and maintain the integrity of not only the East Mediterranean and the trans-Caspian trade but also the prospects for Ukraine’s reconstruction and reintegration into the world economy.

The resurgence of the Indo-Mediterranean region expands the campaign for free and open spaces from the straits of Malacca to the Panama Canal. Italy’s economic and security future is directly intertwined with a free and open Indo-Mediterranean. Similarly, the vision closely complements India’s burgeoning trade with the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and Europe; its efforts to build rail and road networks to Vietnam; and its Indian Ocean and Africa strategies. Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan are also eager to increase their engagement with Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.

A New Atlantic Charter is needed to complete the free and open pathways across the world’s oceans. In the final days of Trump’s first presidency, his National Security Council drafted an Atlantic Strategy to combat China’s malign influence in the Atlantic region. Trump’s second term is likely to complete the unfinished task of reaffirming an Atlantic Strategy or Charter, articulating a multilateral approach to safeguarding free and open spaces from the High North to the transatlantic community, as well as the littoral spaces in Africa and South America in the South Atlantic.

Canada, Greenland, Iceland, as well as the Nordic and Baltic countries, are America’s crucial partners in ensuring a Free North. The “new” Monroe Doctrine is aimed not at making the Atlantic an American lake but at keeping this part of the world safe from interference from external powers like China and Russia.

In the South Atlantic, Argentina’s Javier Milei shares the same view: that security, prosperity, and freedom can be secured through partnerships that unite free and open spaces. West Africa is also an important part of the new Atlantic community. The Africa-Atlantic Gas Pipeline project will advance the integration of economies in West and Central Africa with Europe, further expanding the network of trusted connectivity spreading across the Atlantic world. Similarly, the planned Lobito Corridor extends from the Angolan Coast into the mineral-rich hinterlands of Congo and Zambia.

A Free and Open Paradigm

The world needs a pragmatic and resilient paradigm to navigate a new era following the era of unrestrained globalization while the great powers engage in a new Great Game. What does rest of the world do while the great powers are competing?

The United States and its adversaries, China and Russia, do not have the power and influence to divide the world among themselves into their private spheres of influence. Rather, the traditional paths that once knitted the Eurasian landmass with the rest of the world are reemerging.

Instead of fighting the new old geography, free nations, such as the G7 group, should nudge the world along; in the end, all would benefit from preventing a lapse into the brutal old practices of imperialism or isolationism. Enlightened and prudent leadership calls not for pushing the world under a Davos-fueled progressive vision or the revisionist mercantilism peddled by China but rather for a more restrained and organic approach to regional aspirations and connections.

US policy should not only support these endeavors but also build out the institutional structures that will further strengthen them, creating more resilient, secure, and diverse supply chains, as well as more opportunities for commerce.

Furthermore, linked spaces enhance global security by decreasing opportunities for destabilizing powers to dominate and disrupt the global commons, create strategic chokepoints, or seize critical sources of energy, materials, supply chains, and manufacturing capacity. Free and open connectivity is an alternative to regional competition, with security coming from the resistance to hardened alliances. Free and open common bonds that deliver shared prosperity provide nations with the autonomy to determine their own future, free from the pressures of great-power competition.

Reaching across free and open spaces strengthens enlightened leadership that delivers an enhanced opportunity for human flourishing, allowing people to enjoy the fruits of freedom, free from imperialism or globalism.

Unlike the unfulfilled promises of globalism and the Belt and Road, free and open spaces neither promise nor deliver a new rules-based order, let alone a utopia. What they can do is allow free, sovereign nations more space to make their own decisions. States that prioritize effective governance and openness will see the greatest benefits.

Bridging Free and Open Spaces

It is time to think creatively about how to achieve momentum and synergy in the ongoing regional initiatives, using new institutional frameworks where appropriate. It calls for establishing durable partnerships that extend beyond defense cooperation and encompass the economic, political, and cultural realms, from Argentina to South Korea. Importantly, there is an imperative to engage and integrate Africa and Latin America in burgeoning links between free and open spaces across the Indo-Pacific and Med-Atlantic.

It is time for international institutions to represent the interests of the Indo-Pacific region and its interconnectedness with the Mediterranean. It should start with the G7 transitioning to the G10, embracing India, Australia, and South Korea with immediate effect. A G10 better represents the Indo-Pacific and Med-Atlantic regions, with an equal number of leading liberal democracies from each region: the UK, France, Germany, and Italy from Med-Atlantic, and Japan, India, Australia, and South Korea from the Indo-Pacific, with the US and Canada belonging to both regions.

A more concentrated, committed, and nimble grouping of the world’s four key economic powerhouses—the United States, EU, Japan, and India—is needed to ensure collective economic security interests. The collective economic security interests of this new G4—a global economic security quadrilateral—necessitate resilient and trusted supply chains between the Indo-Pacific and Med-Atlantic.

The new G4 and G10 frameworks are dual and reinforcing lines of effort to catalyze trusted interconnectedness. One is to promote new technologies, such as satellite and submarine-backed telecommunications, to drive digital economies across the free and open spaces. Second, to coordinate amongst their respective development finance institutions to leverage market capital for infrastructure investments, bolstering trusted connectivity among free and open spaces. Third, to support forums for regional actors to articulate, deliberate, and manifest free and open spaces with local characteristics.

Free and open spaces joined by trusted connectivity offer an alternative strategy for like-minded nations to achieve freedom, prosperity, and security in the currently fractious modern world, eschewing the notion that geopolitics must be viewed through the lens of competing blocs, hard spheres of influence, and great-power competition. It is in America’s interest to pursue a proactive approach that reestablishes historical pathways of commerce and connectivity, disrupted by the wars and rivalries of the twentieth century, that can link free nations in these modern times.

About the Authors: Kaush Arha and James Jay Carafano

Kaush Arha is President of the Free & Open Indo-Pacific Forum and a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council and the Krach Institute for Tech Diplomacy at Purdue.

James Jay Carafano is Senior Counselor to the President and E.W. Richardson Fellow at The Heritage Foundation. A leading expert in national security and foreign policy challenges, Carafano previously served as the Vice President of Heritage’s Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy.

Image: Sven Hansche / Shutterstock.com.