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April 28, 2009

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John

Interesting piece. The problem with your analysis are the preconditions for the "globalist" responses aren't met in significant cases. Let's think of a concrete example.

China, which entered the WHO in 1972, essentially adopted a nationalist response in 2001 to the SARS epidemic. Not only did they try to conceal the outbreak of SARS, but they also prevented the WHO from coming in and performing necessary analysis in the initial stages. As a result, China not only endangered the lives of millions of Chinese, but essentially decimated the nearby economies of Hong Kong and Taiwan.

Thus, my question is: What if a country in the global milieu doesn't respond (either for lack of technology or for political reasons)? Just like in prisoner's dilemma (with some conditions), global cooperation in that situation would benefit every country. If one link in the chain breaks, and there is way to force compliance, the entire system breaks down to the default anyway.

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