A group outside the world's established state system exploits tensions among sovereign countries to advance a pet cause. Heads of state attempt to coordinate their instruments of government to curtail that group's power. To contemporary globalization theorists, it is a familiar story. The earliest indicators of the contemporary Space Age appeared in science fiction and comic strips published decades before the 1950s. Given our modern celluloid sensibilities, it makes sense that television and motion pictures should presage how the 21st century will unfold.
Espionage is the most Cold War of genres.
But as early as the 1950s, before Sean Connery first brought Fleming's hero to the screen, James Bond's world was shaken, and stirred, by phenomena we've come to identify with globalization. Indeed, compared with the real crises of the 1960s and 1970s, Bond's world seems strikingly modern. To combat a challenge to their authority and protect and provide for the common welfare, state officials must put aside their disagreements and cooperate. Consider 007's nemeses. Campy, to be sure, but not unfamiliar in its methods.