[santiagogo]

What I would see as problematic is that picking and choosing parts of globalization would probably involve limiting the development of technology, commerce, and in some cases limiting free speech. And depending on the restrictions put in place to limit it, it could end up becoming sort of a global discrimination program which leads up to social conflict or even a war. There is also a conflicting part in your statement, where if for example the US took a 10% hit in GDP, it would in real terms mean that unemployment would double or triple, education, health and the base of society in general would take a huge hit, besides loosing global military and economic leadership, probably leading to huge political instability which lead to less control and more uncertainty (which could give space for a dictatorship, an internal war or a slew of other social problems). Economic growth is sort of like a drug, because once you have a society hooked up and dependent on it, if you take it away cold turkey, everything else that society has built will come crashing.

[mistermann]

Well, if just one simple action such as one country even partially opting out of globalization could lead to a world war, then I'd prefer to cancel the whole undertaking asap. Countries and civilizations have existed largely independently for centuries, if we've build ourselves a house of cards that can come down that easily, getting self sufficient and extracting yourself seems like pretty simple common sense.