A Historical Rhyme: The First World War & Now
“History doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes”
- Mark Twain
The world is in sorry need of remembering this little piece of wisdom often uttered throughout our story as a species, and perhaps now more than ever living in our hectic, fast paced lives. Our modern day comes with luxuries that our ancestors of the late 19th and early 20th centuries could have only dreamed of. However, in the last two years, I have come to believe that there are many occurrences that the statesmen and public of that day would find all too familiar.
Anyone who studies history will know that hindsight is both a valuable tool and an agonizing irony. Looking back at the lead up to the First World War the warning signs seem clear as day to the contemporary viewer, but at the time, even the leaders of the greatest states seem oblivious to the writing on the wall. The why of this question is not important to us right now, but what is are the lessons that can be learned from this period of lost time in which war could have been averted.
The second half of the 19th century saw our first era of globalization complete with its own international diplomatic and economic world order. International disputes were moderated through concert diplomacy and international trade was allowed to flourish through a stable flow of goods and currency stabilized by a gold standard championed by the British Empire and their Pound-Sterling “as good as gold.” With this came immense prosperity and wealth to the half dozen or so states, which had industrialized by this time, but as with all good things, it was not to last. It is my greatest belief that flaws in a system appear the minute those involved believe their work to have been done. The assumption that an ever increasing economic pie on a planet with finite land and resources was sustainable is at the heart of the deterioration in this world order. Eventual conflicts over strategic land and natural resources pitted the major powers against one another. Concert diplomacy created based on the ability for otherwise neutral forces to intervene to moderate failed to move fast enough and with enough force to reduce the tension in a geopolitical arena which now spanned the globe. Localized wars began to become more frequent with the First and Second Balkan Wars of 1912 and 1913 respectively.
This fear and tension did not remain isolated to the political relationship between countries as the global economic system came under threat as well. The move away from Britain as an effective monopoly on global finances coupled with a new age of protectionism in the massively expanding economies of the United States and imperial Germany can be seen as the end to this era’s experiment with free trade. Combined, these two factors marked the beginning of the collapse of the economic system, which had helped spur global development and helped sweep tension under the rug out of preference for growth as opposed to conflict. The decline of the political and economic order governing this age of imperialism signed the death certificate on global peace sending the world on a collision course with calamity which came about in the First World War.
So, why study this sad chapter of history you may ask? To answer this question, I only ask that you observe the world around us today: Trade barriers being erected by major economic players such as the United States and the People’s Republic of China. Border tension and political instability in Eastern Europe combined with a revanche power in the Russian Federation, eager to restore its lost prestige and empire as we are seeing now with Ukraine. A divided global leadership and an international system gridlocked over pressing sources of tension such as growing refugee crises such as in Syria and Afghanistan, and perhaps most relevant, the ongoing COVID-19 Pandemic. When great challenges like these which affect all countries cannot be solved, the rot of the system designed to handle them begins to show. Our current system designed for one state to be able to hold hegemonic status which would act as a bypass for the gridlock of the security council can no longer work given the rising power of other states, and the migration of the center of global power away from the North Atlantic. Given these factors we must reassess our global order not only with the goal of creating a more equitable system, but simply with the goal of preserving peace and stability.
If we are not careful and fail to heed the warning signs of our past, we may find ourselves living to regret or more pessimistically, not being able to live to regret it. Perhaps the one saving grace we have at our disposal is the economic interconnectedness of the U.S. and China; whereas in 1914, all major powers had little knowledge of the destructive capabilities of modern warfare and having already eroded the benefits of economic interdependence, conflict was inevitable. Thankfully, we have yet to reach that point. There is yet time to address these divisions and flaws in our global system. It will be uncomfortable and it will be difficult, but only through global cooperation can global challenges be solved.
To begin this process we would not need to start from square one as we have institutions from which to build on as well as historical precedent. Ideas like this have begun floating in academic circles, where ideas about how to reform both the political and economic systems governing global relationships. The best way to begin is to conduct a review of our global economic system, and a new approach to global finance and economics as argued in “The Case for a New Bretton Woods” co-authored by Boston University’s own Professor Kevin Gallagher and Mr. Richard Kozul-Wright who is the Director of the Globalization and Development Strategies Division in the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). By calling back to a formative moment in creating the postwar world order, Prof. Gallagher and Mr. Kozul-Wright call attention to just how pressing this matter is, and more importantly it symbolizes at what kind of level reforms must be made. Whereas after the second world war the economic forum was dominated by the western allies, a new “Bretton Woods” would need to reflect the diverse nature of our modern world. To address the economic challenges will be a commendable step, but the world must not stop with economic change. A political shakeup will be the most important step away from the path of war, but that also means it will most likely be the most uncomfortable.
There is debate about what the post nation-state world will look like, and while we are seeing a few different attempts at political reform around the globe, reconciling cultural and institutional differences without breaking off into closed blocs will present the major political challenge of the 21st century. If the European Union is any indication of how the transition away from the nation-state will be one can only imagine the turmoil that would be felt on the global stage. However, if carefully managed I believe that this task is one we can accomplish. We humans share an undeniable skill that transcends national borders and that is storytelling. As Yuval Noah Harari chronicles in book “Sapiens” humanity has the capacity to write its own story, its own future, and if we are careful, and heed the rhymes of history we might just be able to leave the world a little better than we found it.