In 2009, some fresh thinking is in order

PALO ALTO, Calif.

--If there are any of us who still doubt that the world has shrunk, that we all are linked and dependent on one another, this has been the year that proved us wrong. The evidence is all around us. Early this year, homeowners in Wichita, Kan., and Fuquay-Varina, N.C. (among 1,000 other places), defaulted on their mortgages. And so it began.

This month, Chile, Russia, and France were teetering on the edge of recession. Japan, China, and Brazil were proposing major fiscal-stimulus plans to stave off economic disaster. Iceland's financial sector virtually collapsed. Latvia pleaded for an emergency loan from the European Union. Cambodia offered to contribute $150 million to a regional emergency fund. A credit freeze in Poland suffocated the housing market.

Our housing crisis swept the globe. Another example: Over the last few months, much of the world watched, transfixed, as Somali pirates--can you believe it, pirates!--attacked 40 ships in the Gulf of Aden. With little coordination and even less prompting, Malaysia, the United States, Britain, China, Denmark, Russia, France, and Greece, among others, all sent warships to the gulf. Less surprising, perhaps, but still inspiring: After Barack Obama won the election in November, congratulations poured in from every corner of the globe. That's not so odd. But for many of these countries, the congratulations were not pro forma. The reaction was actually jubilation.

Looking across the sweep of the year just ended, in many ways it was bleak. North Korea made a deal to end its nuclear weapons program, and then as soon as the other nations fulfilled their parts of the bargain, Pyongyang reneged. Robert Mugabe apparently lost re-election, but rather than accept defeat he dragged his nation down with him--until conditions deteriorated so far that Zimbabwe contracted a cholera epidemic.

Russia descended further back toward autocracy. In December, the government put forward a new law that would label its critics traitors.

Congo and Somalia plunged deeper into the dismal abyss of anarchy, despair, and death. In Afghanistan, the Taliban began launching attacks just outside Kabul, the capital. Iran continued stiff-arming the United Nations and much of the world, refusing to end its nuclear program.

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