On the real authors of Western decline.

— and why the storm should linger a little longer.

It is often said that globalization failed America. It did not. America failed itself.

Globalization did precisely what it was always going to do: it connected markets, lowered trade barriers, and accelerated the movement of goods, capital, and ideas. Predictably, it enabled the rise of nations long positioned on the margins of the global economy. For many, this was not a tragedy but an opportunity. Billions of people, primarily in Asia, escaped poverty, entered the global labour force, and began to demand — reasonably — a better share of the world's prosperity.

This is the fact that much of the American narrative struggles to accommodate. It is not that globalization was unfair. It is that others adapted, and America did not. The grievance, real as it may be, is misdirected.

Consider Korea. Faced with the pressures of globalization, it did not merely open its economy and hope for the best. It implemented a deliberate, state-led industrial strategy, supported by education and a disciplined export sector. It endured crises — notably the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis — and adjusted. It adapted with seriousness.

Consider China. It did not stumble into the WTO. It entered with a clear strategy, using its demographic scale and low-cost labour as initial leverage while embedding itself into global supply chains. Market liberalization was selective, state control was maintained where necessary, and long-term industrial capacity was deliberately built.

Consider Germany. Alone among its Western peers, it retained a strong industrial base. It maintained and adapted its Mittelstand — mid-sized, export-oriented firms — and integrated vocational training and worker protections into its industrial strategy. It did not regard manufacturing as a relic.

Consider Singapore. Lacking resources, it focused on logistics, finance, and industrial excellence. Its government, pragmatic and strategic, positioned it not as the cheapest but as the most reliable.

None of these countries were spared the shocks of globalization. They acted nonetheless.

America, by contrast, consumed. It welcomed globalization’s benefits: cheap consumer goods, rising asset prices, and short-term political comfort. It did not invest adequately in infrastructure, education, or industrial policy. It placed extraordinary trust in markets while ignoring their limitations. It distributed the gains upwards and socialized the costs.

And now, the reckoning. America, having failed to prepare for the foreseeable and indeed foreseen consequences of globalization, confronts the conditions it helped create. The response has not been adaptation but deflection. Tariff wars, selective subsidies, and nostalgic rhetoric about industrial renewal dominate the discourse. Yet beneath the slogans, there is no serious strategy. The supply chains, skills, and institutional capacity required for genuine reindustrialization are deficient. The measures are reactive and fragmented, more performance than policy.

What America cannot reconcile is that others — Korea, China, Germany, Singapore — acted. They did not merely endure globalization; they managed it. They made choices, accepted trade-offs, and prepared for the long term. America did not. It indulged in perceived exceptionalism, assuming that adaptation was for others.

Europe, for its part, is neither innocent nor doomed. It hesitated, it fragmented, but parts of it — Germany most notably — took globalization seriously. The European Union retains, even now, the means to respond coherently. Whether it will find the political will is a separate matter.

Portugal is a marginal example, but illustrative. When cheaper competition undermined its textile and footwear sectors, there were no grand narratives of betrayal. The country adapted modestly, shifting some production upmarket, losing other parts irretrievably. It was not heroic, but it was pragmatic.

The real reckoning is neither new nor mysterious. America now rages against conditions it spent decades constructing. It blames the tide for coming in.

Europe still has choices. It can strengthen its internal cohesion, reduce dependency on an increasingly unreliable ally, and redefine its external partnerships. Or it can drift, hoping inertia will suffice.

The United Kingdom, for its part, drifts. It clings to illusions of sovereign agility while quietly aligning itself, economically and politically, with an increasingly unstable United States. Yet, it cannot indefinitely serve two kings — a fact that, as a monarchy, it should be painfully aware of. Eventually, it will have to choose between re-anchoring itself to Europe or subordinating itself to the strategic calculations of an America that no longer sees it as indispensable. Whether it has the clarity, or the will, to make that choice remains uncertain.

There is a part of me that hopes this discomfort lasts long enough to leave a mark. Discomfort, if it lingers, may still teach. Brief pain is often forgotten.

No one stole the future. It was given away — freely, and for far less than it was worth.

The tide came in. And those who built the shoreline now cry betrayal.