New Delhi, Nov. 2 -- During an economic milestone event in 2013 called the "taper tantrum," a Morgan Stanley analyst coined the term "Fragile Five." Turkey, Brazil, India, South Africa and Indonesia were counted among them because they faced declining currencies, soaring bond yields, high inflation and large external debt burdens, which were insufficiently covered by their local reserves. This fragility was manifest when extremely low global interest rates were "tapered" back towards normalcy.

Today's Fragile Five belong entirely to the Group of Seven (G7) countries, which are the most developed in the world. The Fragile Five in 2026 are France, Italy, the UK, Germany and the US. And they are fragile not only in economic terms but also i...