I. The Atlantic Perspective and the emergence of a Concrete West

c. Stages further down the road

In fact Chile has just been let into OECD, on the basis of the mistaken belief that the First World is in decline and the OECD needs to go South and become a mixed First-Third world institution in order to avoid obsolescence and keep its relevance. Mexico and Turkey are also already in OECD, for specific reasons of need due to contiguity and intimate interaction, not for ideological reasons. None of these three, however, can as yet be counted as fully a part of the Concrete West. In 20 years they might be. This assumes continued economic progress in these countries, development of a middle class based society with a bell curved social structure rather than the longstanding division between a rich elite and an impoverished mass, and continued (or restored) and improved adherence to democratic standards. And -- most important of all, similar to what is most important for Russia -- it assumes a change of mentality, to come to support the First World’s global leadership and participate constructively in that leadership, and convincingly refute and leave behind the mentality of resisting First World leadership.

There will be no urgency in this. An OECD that includes only its present members can still be expected to have, in 20 years, at least as strong a hegemonial role in the world economy as OECD had in the 1960s or 1980s; if Russia is added too within 20 years (and a few other small Asian and Eastern European countries), OECD could be expected to be in an even higher position economically, and in a better position than today in terms of security and energy.

The question of Latin American accretions would be a matter of choice, not necessity. That is to the good: candidates are evaluated in a more objective manner, when pursued with the understanding that it is a matter of discretion.

Still larger and poorer Asian countries will come later. The largest, India and China, will pose unique challenges of size (discussed below).

There is much talk of including Israel in NATO, but this would be reckless, absent an ability to include Arab countries simultaneously¹¹. OECD has invited Israel to pursue membership; this is a less politically charged matter, and could make sense given Israel’s First World nature and its contributions to international development efforts.

Staggered entries from each region

In all four areas -- Latin America, Asia, Islamdom, Africa -- it will not be a matter “now we bring in the entire region joining as a single phase of Western expansion, then we move on to the next region”; rather, it will be an overlapping processes. Some countries in one region will join early; others will remain outside while countries from other regions are meanwhile joining.

Differential integration with West, not regional unity against West
Differentiation will be the rule in most regions. Differentiation has emerged in practice in Western integration of the former Soviet bloc. Some of it may not have been necessary there; it will be entirely necessary in other regions, and has long since begun in most of them. Developmental conditions diverge radically within each Third World region, far more than they did in the former Sovietized space. Similarly, within each region there are radically different levels of connection to the Western world system.
Geographical regions are not today, and will not become, separate compact regions, to be added together as weights compared against OECD or the West. Parts of each region are already more Western than regional in their connections, character, and identity. More of them will become this way.
This intra-regional differentiation process is well advanced in Asia. Australia and New Zealand were organically Western from the start. Japan was incorporated into the OECD West in the 1960s, South Korea in the 1990s. Both of these are in the military alliance network, and a number of other Asian countries are in other less formal or peripheral parts of the Atlantic system. China remains outside.
It is a mistake when popular writers add up “Asia” as a single region, whose growth is called a “rise” that shows a “decline” of the West. Actually a third of the region by population, two thirds of it by GDP, is more Western than “joint Asian” in its sociopolitical and geopolitical character.
In a lesser way, a similar differentiation process has long existed in Latin America. Mexico is in OECD as an exception to the rule because of NAFTA, and now Chile too is in, albeit for questionable reasons; the bulk of the region remains outside. Additionally, there is a weak indirect Atlantic link through the inter-American security pact and OAS; there are major links to the U.S. and to Spain. Meanwhile the region is divided between anti-American populist leaders and western-style reformers, and has endured several historical seesaws between these as main trends. Free trade area negotiations with the U.S. have been sharpening the lines between those opting for integration, those opting for opposition.
Differentiation has also begun in the Islamic world. Many parts of the Islamic world, like parts of Latin America, are deeply connected, strategically and economically, with the West. Turkey has been included in the OECD from the start, due to its historic participation in the Marshall Plan and before that in the European balance. In those years, it was believed that we knew a lot about how to engineer development and that Turkey would become an organic part of the EU. But it has turned out that Turkey instead remains an exception within OECD, much like Mexico, as distant from being a part of the common First World society as it was in the 1960s.
Since large parts of the Islamic world, of Latin America, of Southern Asia, and of Africa are deeply connected, strategically and economically, with the West, how should they be counted in global balance-of-power sheets? They are not organically connected to the West, in the sense of being part of the common First World society; the connection is far from entirely reliable on a basis of culture and interest. They therefore cannot be counted as part of the West. Can they be added up in their separate regions as constituting potentially a combined weight opposed to the West? Yes, but only hypothetically; that is, only as long as it is understood that this is just one contingent possibility among others, and a highly probable possibility at that; not an established reality, nor an inherent future consequence of economic growth in the region, nor of a presupposed regional character of the region. It is unlikely that any of these regions, much less all of them, will congeal into a solid front against the West; more likely in the long they will all be integrated into the West. For now, each region has to be counted as it is empirically: divided.
China and India
One problem deserves further discussion. China and India are huge. Other countries, as they come into the West individually, divide regions into bite-sized chunks. But will it ever be possible to take in and digest China, or India?
To be sure, Chinese and Indian membership are a distant question. There will be no reason to rush them in.
As long as the West continues to grow carefully, semi-organically, along the pathways we have outlined above, it will find it never arrives at a point of feeling threatened by Chinese or Indian growth. And, for the very reason that the West is likely to continue to grow meanwhile, its relative proportion to China and India will be changed to the West’s favor by the time they become plausible candidates socio-economically. It is probable, thus, that their entry will prove assimilable within the Atlantic system.
In population terms, China presently has 1.3 billion, India 1.2 billion, OECD 1.2 billion. China’s and India’s populations are still growing, but slowing; a leveling-off is projected at 1.4 and 1.6 billion respectively. OECD’s population growth through new memberships. In the future, as China and India level off, OECD’s population growth is likely to be greater than theirs.
Global population is projected to level off at 9 billion. At that distant time -- around 2050 -- China and India would total 3 billion people, the rest of the world 6 billion. In the meanwhile, OECD would have had time to absorb much of that “rest of the world” -- probably most of the former Soviet space, some of Latin America, some additional Asian countries, some of the Islamic world -- bringing OECD up to 2-3 billion people.
Would OECD then be able to absorb India and China, presumably one at a time with a substantial digestion period? The most probable answer is, “yes, with conditions”: it will be difficult but manageable, as long as the West waits until India and China meet reasonably well the standards for being a part of the common First World society.
Fortunately, an OECD with 2-3 billion people could afford to wait as long as needed for this; an economically growing China or India would not be a threat to its global leadership. Even if India or China fully matched OECD economic conditions per capita -- an unlikely prospect, even in 100 years -- OECD would still have by a wide margin the highest GDP of any cohesive unit in the world; its global leadership would remain intact.
In any case, the First World does not wait for perfect per capita equality before letting countries in. The EU and OECD have both safely included countries when they have arrived at a third of the average First World per capita income. India will probably be brought in when it reaches about 50% of First World p.c.i.; which, assuming an OECD First World of 2-3 billion people at that point, means it would have about 30% of total First World GDP -- far less than the level needed for challenging the West for global economic leadership. The same will go for China.
In sum, there are no insuperable obstacles in the non-Western world -- not in its civilizational character, not in its economic growth, not in its size -- to the continuation of the Atlantic Perspective all the way to the end. The Concrete West need only continue cultivating itself, continue gathering in countries, continue limiting its expansion to emerging First World-ized countries. To keep its boat afloat and advancing, it need only look forward, and avoid suicidal impulses and siren songs. If it does this, it can continue maintaining its cooperative depth even while expanding, until it has become an in-gathering of the entire world.

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