## TURBULENCE AND THE LESSONS OF HISTORY

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### Overview
- Argument: In the 21st century the gravest threat to international stability lies in societies’ greater interdependence, which reinforces the power of a shock from anywhere in the world to become systemic.
- Historical parallel: The first half of the 20th century experienced a sequence of shocks—World War I, the Spanish flu, communist revolutions, a Great Depression characterized by rival trade blocs, and a global geopolitical crisis that resulted in World War II—showing that interconnectedness and systemic risk are not new.
- Institutional question: The post-1945 multilateral order, centered on the United Nations, appeared successful for decades but recent crises have exposed limits to what international institutions can anticipate and manage.

### Managing future shocks
- Framing:
  - Prefer managing “turbulence” rather than treating periods as binary eras of stability versus crisis.
  - Emphasize multipolarity and the uneven distribution of global resources and power; “a new power shift is underway, but it is not just in China’s favor.”
- Historical lessons:
  - After 1918 the rapid development of overseas markets for the United States “turned from boom to bust,” with lasting effects on North American wheat prices and implications for US trade policy and diplomacy.
  - Population displacement after both world wars produced long-lasting social consequences; in the decade or more after these wars large numbers of displaced central and eastern Europeans still lived in temporary camps.
- Practical implication:
  - Recognize relationships between different types of shocks (e.g., population displacement, disease, geopolitical conflict, disruptive technological innovation, climate change) and plan multiagency and state engagement rather than leaving management to individual institutions such as NATO or the IMF.
- Institutional path dependence:
  - The League of Nations’ failure and the subsequent creation of more specialized post-1945 institutions underscore how past forms of governance condition present possibilities and limits for reform.

### From local to global
- Historical precedent:
  - The fight against epidemics (typhus, cholera, tuberculosis) in the 1920s established international mechanisms of scientific and humanitarian collaboration that persisted even during wartime.
  - Those practices influenced the creation in 1945 of the World Health Organization, the Food and Agriculture Organization, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Bank.
- Policy emphasis:
  - The global response to shocks must support local, community-based programs with economic, financial, and health assistance.
  - Building cooperative institutions of global governance is “extremely difficult” from scratch; the 1945 shift from a multipurpose League of Nations to single-purpose UN institutions suggests governance strands can be discrete but contemporary shocks show they are interconnected.

### Regional institutions, geopolitics, and diplomacy
- Regional importance:
  - The war in Ukraine has underscored the importance of regional institutions to global governance and revived debate about how NATO, the European Union, and UN bodies should relate to one another on human security.
  - New regional institutions (example cited: the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank) have global implications that are “far from clear.”
- Geopolitical realities:
  - Power politics shaped and limited global governance throughout the 20th century; the return of geopolitics presents both a challenge and an opportunity for reform.
- Diplomacy and law:
  - Diplomacy must focus on securing peace that respects Ukrainian sovereignty while addressing security needs, but the reputation of international law and institutions must not be ignored.
  - Historical example: after World War I the Allied blockade and subsequent protectionist legal instruments impeded recovery of world trade until the 1960s; perceived unfairness in trade terms undermined legitimacy of the settlement after 1919.
  - Caution: Working outside international organizations risks delivering a “fatal blow to global order” and to prospects for peace; states opposing the international system historically sometimes used League mechanisms before opting out and challenging the order.

### Agency, activism, and reform
- Role of civil society:
  - The 1920s were marked by waves of social mobilization around international questions; many nongovernmental organizations supporting displaced Ukrainian civilians grew from grassroots activism.
  - A “new generation of self-starting aid entrepreneurs” has emerged, able to influence reform language and frameworks.
- Opportunity in crisis:
  - Turbulence simultaneously pushes institutions to their limits and fosters “creative, pluralistic, and dynamic advocacy” that can lead to new modes of cooperation in difficult times.

### Final lessons and recommendations (implicit)
- Think in terms of managing ongoing turbulence and the interconnection of shocks rather than separated crises.
- Prioritize multiagency, cross-sector planning that links health, food, finance, trade, displaced peoples, and climate change responses.
- Strengthen and reform international and regional institutions while deploying international law and organizations in support of allies and diplomacy.
- Support local and community-based efforts as integral to global responses and leverage civil society activism to shape institutional reform.
- Be mindful of historical precedents where perceived unfairness or ad hoc diplomacy undermined legitimacy and long-term recovery.

*Patricia Clavin, “Turbulence and the Lessons of History”*

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_Source: https://www.imf.org/-/media/files/publications/fandd/article/2022/june/clavin.pdf_