The winner’s curse

A key irony of our times is this: The United States and Britain have been accused in previous decades of constructing an international order to suit their interests. The postwar Western and global system was governed by the international institutions and organizations they created (from Bretton Woods to NATO). The losers of World War II, Germany and Japan, were rebuilt under American tutelage.

The collapse of the Communist bloc sealed the victory of liberal capitalism - some even rushed to pronounce the "end of history." The liberalization of world trade and the money and capital markets was essentially an Anglo-American project. In addition, Europe's key decisions (the single market, eastern enlargement, the Lisbon Agenda) were largely a product of the influence of Britain, which had opted out of every aspect of European integration it did not wish to be part of, from the...