autarchy

The tangled global webs of interdependence between hardware and software, China and the west, show very clearly how vulnerable both sides are to the other and how impossible it is for either to achieve technological autarchy, even if that were desirable.

“We are opening up gradually but are still the most closed economy in Latin America. Argentina tried to follow a model of autarchy. Isolation was the goal of the government. We are just starting to join globalisation.”

The end of the Cold War was in many respects a victory for open trade versus autarchy.

Countries engaged in trade prospered; countries practicing autarchy floundered.

Such global economic realities mean America could not achieve autarchy, even if it were in its interest to do so.