1) Shipping has always been quintessential to Commerce and Sovereignty.

As the global

north grows the business of shipping will too grow. But as of now we are already seeing

issues with the size as it is, two major aspects of global shipping are choke points and Super

ports. Super ports are an impressive mix of harbors with the width and depth to facilitate

multiple new gen container ships, with the addition of the extensive onshore infrastructure to

allow timely loading/Unloading and distribution of containers. Only thirty Super ports exist

in the world and of those a third are located in china, for the express reason that the majority

of Super ports are not naturally occurring harbors and must the excavated requiring immense

amounts of resources and time in addition to the resources and time required to build the

onshore infrastructure. Choke points are abundant in world trade and important to boot, the

Suez canal alone sees the movement of two thirds of Europe’s oil and traffics seven and a

half percent of the world trade, but similarly to Super ports not only is the volume of trade

restricted by these choke points but so too are the size of container ships, if a ship wishes to

be the most cost efficient it must be able to pass through these points. While these choke

points could surely be expanded, as the Suez has been, this brings the risk of either extremely

slow and costly construction or restricting world trade for a significant amount of time. New

harbors must be built in consideration to new gen containerships and new gen container ships

must be built in consideration to preexisting choke points. Continuing the trend of costly

endeavors, both Super harbors and canals must be maintained, any infrastructure that is built

must be maintained and eventually be replaced, so when building these the question of

whether it is worth it in the short and long term must be asked, and eventually the answer

will be no.
 Now financial considerations are obviously not the only challenge presented to globalization,

the notion of sovereignty finds itself put it complex and annoying complications, for the sake

of globalization many concessions over sovereign territory must be made, a state allows ships

and crews of varying flag states within their water and ports, these ships acting as direct

challenges to the idea of their sovereign territory . and for the sake of the continuation of its

sovereignty, a state will without a doubt limit the capacity of globalization within its territory,

recently demonstrated quite clearly with the refugee crisis. In which it not uncommon for

boat loads of refugees attempt to reach the shores of a foreign state, in direct challenge to the

states wishes and challenging the sovereigns’ control over who enters the state. A historical

precedent for this limitation can be seen in the story of the Komagata Maru told in the

reading “Boats”, wherein a Japanese liner filled with Indian workers was turned away by the

budding Canadian state, in order to establish itself as a truly independent sovereignty, and

exercise its right over immigration.

The belief in the idea of a sovereign is often considered necessary for the protection of

citizens and waging war, by giving a state the power to distinguish between “us” and “them” in

order to protect “us” and protect itself. A sovereign may use various methods to make that

distinction, including and not limited to border control and citizenship. Two very basic concepts

of sovereignty, citizens as a class of people who give up some there rights and the potential rights

they have in the future for the order and protection afforded to them by the state, and the state

promises to protect them, to ensure the protection of the “Us” a sovereign outlines its borders,

the region in which its laws are enforced and the “them” are separated and dealt with. Because of

these two basic attributes of a state places like gitmo can exist, an extension of the power
afforded to a sovereign by their citizens for the purpose of protecting “us” from “them”, which

includes neither citizens or sovereign territory, only the “them” with no lawful protection.

Globalization will soon reach its maximum, even with deep and wider canals only so many ships

can get through in a day, and with the build and maintenance costs of super ports we are unlikely

to see more construction of them. On top of this a major aspect of globalization has been the

loosening and blurring of the ideas of sovereign waters, and an increased ease of movement for

ships from country to country, these ideal present direct threats to the idea of sovereigns and

what powers they have, and with out these direct powers to separate the “them” from the “us”

externalities that benefit sovereigns, like gitmo, become much less stable. So either if we want to

any further increase globalization greatly, it will come at the cost of abandoning Westphalian

sovereigns and the idea of “Us” and “them”.

2) Any object can become international, and many do or have. From the yellow car, to

something considered so mundane as a bench. While the object may provide contextual

explanations to why its made the international, they themselves are by no means unique. The

real key is that wider connections and layers of powers are being expressed through the

medium of the mundane. While currency is quite an exceptional object, it presents a grand

example towards this, not only does it directly represent the opinions of those who are

immediately spending it i.e voting with your wallet. But it also inherently represents a

populaces trust in its state and further represents the countries relative strength on the world

stage. Furthermore it is seemingly understood that a sovereign state would require its own

currency to be legitimate and recognized on the world stage. In this aspect of currency makes
it a perfect target for civil discourse and protest, a little packet of quasi-national ideals ripe

for defacing in protest to systematic or governmental issues.

But its not necessary things to be widespread or abundant to make the international and have

multiple powers represented within. The Zimmerman telegraph for example in WWI was a

objectively singular thing, that directly represented and expressed the desires of Zimmerman,

however over the course of its lifespan, it was turned traitor and used to fulfill the desires of

the British empire, became the pivot point for the United States of America decisions.

Currency demonstrates that any object can become international, something as common as a

piece of currency represents a multitude of actors, from the current holder, to the sovereign of

the state and its legitimacy. While the Diplomatic cable shows that a singular object with

limited actors is still just as capable of making the international, an expression of the

sovereigns intention and directive, that when betrayed becomes instead an expression of the

control expressed by foreign powers upon these intentions.

3) No, not as globalization is conceptualized today. It connects the world as it claims, many

countries working together or towards common goals, but not usually in ways to benefit the

global community, rather for the explicit benefit of the individual in this context. We have

seen universal adaptation of standard shipping containers, making moving things easier,

quicker, cheaper. But that’s not for the benefit of the global community, that’s for the benefit

of the capitalist, as it is easier, quicker and cheaper. In a first world country we benefit

greatly from globalization, we have cheap electronics, cheap clothing, ease of access to
natural materials, our jobs have minimum wages, plus we have health benefits and hazard

pay. We have those because others do not, 50% of super tankers end up in Bangladesh to be

scrapped, provided 80% of their steel, the workers are paid $1-2 and ~300 people die a year

on Alang beach. What state is willing to fully realize the globalization ideals at the cost of

their own citizen affluence?

Even when it comes to making the world a safer place, cracking down on crime syndicates

and on terrorist organizations, in the 4x4 reading it notes that 450,000 Euros have been set

aside by the EU for Nigers security forces, and a RRS in mali was trained and equipped

internationally for the purposes of antiterrorist actions, but this RRS was mainly used for

escorting people and money as narcotic trafficking and its peripheral elements are seen as a

non-issue to most of the population, while Europe suffers a portion of the impact of it.

so as it stand now, there is no hope under globalization, at least not as its is conceptualized

now. Attempting to accommodate so many individual actors with differing ideals and

objectives, that all only look to the benefit of their own. Happy to have others suffer the brunt

of the issue while they themselves benefit, whether that is the global north economically

taking advantage of the global south, or Mali and Nigers taking money and equipment to

stabilize their position but not dealing with the issue they have been asked. A new

conceptualization of globalization will have to take place for it to be fully realized.