http://www.augustreview.com/issues/...america_and_europe_in_the_crucible_200604072/
Immediately after the close of the Cold War, the Trilateral Commission – a private policy group comprised of American, European, and Asian counterparts – released its study, Regionalism in a Converging World. [16] According to its Introduction,
“…regionalism need not be opposed to globalism. The world should not have to choose between one or the other. It needs to live with both. The challenge…is how to channel the forces of regionalism in directions compatible with and supportive of globalism.” [17] [italics in original]
It’s important to understand that sponsorship for regionalism as a step in the globalization process hasn’t just been confined to the Trilateral Commission and its members. Thankfully, the many builders of this regional-global order have left their fingerprints plastered throughout the twentieth century. More significantly, their motives are also discernable.
Back in 1942, The Brookings Institute released its report, Peace Plans and American Choices, highlighting a variety of hopeful post-war concepts for “world order.” Options were reviewed such as explicit US mastery over international affairs, the creation of a British-American Alliance, harmonizing world order through a “Union of Democracies” (which was being touted at the time by Clarence Streit [18] ), and the collaboration of a larger “United Nations” package. Regionalism was considered in detail, with the Western Hemisphere, Europe, and Asia comprising the main blocks.
Arthur Millspaugh, author of the Brookings report, was candid in his linking of regionalism to the “bigger picture,”
“Such regional arrangements may be considered either as steps or stages in the evolution of a universal world order, as substitutes for a universal order, or as something to be combined with a world-wide system.” [19]
