Europe is converging on a definition of economic security as reduced dependence – de-risking, reshoring, buying European. This column argues that the definition is mistaken. Three decades of evidence on financial and production networks shows that resilience is a property of a node’s position in the network – the depth, diversity, and quality of its connections – not of the number of connections it has severed for self-sufficiency. Applying this test to critical input supply chains such as energy and defense – with Turkey, the EU’s largest customs union partner, as the defining case – the author argues that Europe passes the initiative’s ‘Singapore test’ only if it treats integration depth, rather than self-sufficiency, as the union’s security variable.

Debates about geopolitical fragmentation always revive the late economist Robert Mundell’s dream of a single world money. But participants should be mindful of the euro’s real-world experience over the past quarter-century.

Access Professor Sebnem Kalemli-Ozcan's written remarks on Financial and Trade Globalization, Its Future, and the Mundellian Vision and what can we learn from Mundell for staying resilient under geopolitical shocks here.