Soviet Union Trade Blocs Trade Blocs (Pacts)

Soviet Union Trade Blocs Trade blocs (pacts) and mutual economic associations of interest are hardly new tactical weapons on the nation-state board of marketing strategies. They have been used across the eons for one or another purpose. Leaders of countries of all types have attempted to execute their own versions of this kind of economic vitality model, even when such cooperation forces them to reach outside of their controlling economic philosophies.

This was why, in part, Gorbachev cemented early on in his efforts an alliance between COMECON (the Soviet Union's internal Council for Mutual Economic Assistance) with the early partnership members of what would become the European Union (Foxley, 2010). The Soviet Union was on the verge of losing its state market influence, meaning it had a need to reach more broadly to the global market potentials.

In 1991, the European Council Free Trade Associations signed an agreement with COMECON, laying the foundation for what would become a force for reconfiguring the borders of trade between Russia and the other freed countries that would want to look to the EU for help and economic strength (Foxley, 2010:14). In 1994, Russia itself signed its own agreement through this process so as to ensure that it would remain a key trade agent of the EU, which it is today (European Commission, 2012).

This grand and glorious vision of the development of the trade pact idea as visible in the EU came about for economic and political reasons. For its inception, the geopolitical goals of the EU were to capitalize on its economic abilities and to change the dynamics of economic control across the region. And it worked. As the Carnegie Endowment summarized this pattern as recently as 2010, "the powerful magnet of entering 'the club' of developed, modern, open societies represented by the EU prevailed.

Full integration into the European Union proceeded as planned, with generally positive results for the new member countries" (Foxley, 2010:15). Why this is important to understand in looking at current trade strategies is because it was this large-scale version of multilateral influence that is now being called into question.

Newer approaches are seeking to move away from this global reach toward shoring up other more specialized tactics that are very similar to what is happening in the field of microeconomic organizational theories aligned with technology driven business intelligence systems (Dimon and Tucker, 2008). Large-scale models like the EU that sought to capitalize on the convenience, security, locational and other presumptions of the benefits of trade pacts found these advantages undercut by larger forces (Regional Trade Blocs, 2012).

Accordingly, the most successful business strategies will instead be those that concentrate on their specialized resources and their ability to execute unique influences over their domains of importance. Multilateral models are thus giving way to "minilateral" models where project or even role-based influences control operational directives (Foxley, 2008:10). The resources of efficiency and success are geared toward the ways in which the members' interests are met most directly, not just in regard to trade pact's place on the global field. Two demonstrations of the minilateralism models are readily apparent.

The first is through the ways that existing smaller groups are reaffirming their sector-specific marketing benefits. The EFTA or European Free Trade Association is a prime example (Gronningsaeter, 2011). This group, which has been in existence for over 50 years, has been actively stepping up the trade interests of its limited membership.

As its 2011 overview put it, "The main reason why Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland use EFTA as their common vehicle for preferential trade relations is that, as a group, they carry more economic and political weight, thus being more attractive to potential trade partners" (Gronningsaeter, 2011:10). While the EFTA works hand-in-hand with the EU, its focus is specialized to its geographic partnership requirements and it is able to keep their business and social welfare standards front-and-center.

The EFTA takes full advantage of its global capabilities but does so with a stronger sense of achievement of its original expectations and thus can help businesses and countries target their marketing to the sizeable audience the EFTA influences. A second model can be found in the new BRIC classification developed in 2001 by Goldman Sacks (O'Neill and Stumpnyska, 2009).

They recognized that four countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China) were poised to be the shapers of successful market influences in the future, and thus it would be best for them to use that commonality as their own form of membership club. Rather than seeking a geographic trade association, they share a greater interest in capitalizing on the size of their markets and in their ability to guide innovations and related future business impacts. When partnered with.