The IMF Gains an Identity from Financial Crisis by Thomas Barnett

ARTICLE: “Emerging markets: All fall down; Firms in developing countries struggle to escape their roots,” The Economist, 11 October 2008.

WORLD NEWS: “IMF Regains Some Global Clout: Once-Scorned Lender Fashions Rescue Package for Those With No Alternatives,” by Bob Davis, Wall Street Journal, 23 October 2008.

ARTICLE: “Trouble Without Borders: As Crisis Spreads, Emerging Nations Become Vulnerable,” by Martin Fackler, New York Times, 24 October 2008.

The emerging markets become the submerging markets.

I have a slide I often use in the brief where I note that Bush-Cheney sold the West on a war of survival with radical Islam when no such threat exists. Instead, it’s the emerging markets for whom this struggle against violent extremists intent on torpedoing globalization’s embrace of their traditional societies is actually a war of survival. Because if globalization really goes down the tubes, the West is still rich and the emerging are submerged and put at true risk of regime legitimacy.

So like I suggest in Great Powers, the IMF finds new life by moving down the development chain just a bit and focusing more on those New Core and Gap economies that—if not for the crisis—would be on the upswing and thus should be prioritized for saving in this moment. Seriously made countries like Brazil believe they’re beyond this, and maybe they are, but the tier just below (like Ukraine, Hungary, Pakistan) definitely need this sort of help.