Eve of Disaster：Why 2013 eerily looks like the world of 1913, on the cusp of the Great War
The leading power of the age is in relative decline, beset by political crisis at home and by steadily eroding economic prowess. Rising powers are jostling for position in the four corners of the world,
some seeking a new place for themselves within the current global order, others questioning its very legitimacy. Democracy and despotism are locked in uneasy competition. A world economy is interconnected as never before by flows of money, trade, and people, and by the unprecedented spread of new, distance-destroying technologies. A global society, perhaps even a global moral consciousness, is emerging as a result. Small-town America rails at the excessive power of Wall Street. Asia is rising once again. And, yes, there’s trouble in the Middle East.
The leading power of the age is in relative decline, beset by political crisis at home and by steadily eroding economic prowess. Rising powers are jostling for position in the four corners of the world,
some seeking a new place for themselves within the current global order, others questioning its very legitimacy. Democracy and despotism are locked in uneasy competition. A world economy is interconnected as never before by flows of money, trade, and people, and by the unprecedented spread of new, distance-destroying technologies. A global society, perhaps even a global moral consciousness, is emerging as a result. Small-town America rails at the excessive power of Wall Street. Asia is rising once again. And, yes, there’s trouble in the Middle East.
Sound familiar?
In many ways, the world of 1913, the last year before the Great War, seems not so much the world of 100 years ago as the world of today, curiously refracted through time. It is impossible to look at it without an uncanny feeling of recognition, telescoping a century into the blink of an eye. But can peering back into the world of our great-grandparents really help us understand the world we live in today?
Let’s get the caveats out of the way upfront. History does not repeat itself — at least not exactly. Analogies from one period to another are never perfect. However tempting it may be to view China in 2013 as an exact parallel to Germany in 1913 (the disruptive rising power of its age) or to view the contemporary United States as going through the exact same experience as Britain a century ago (a “weary titan staggering under the too vast orb of its fate,” as Joseph Chamberlain put it), things are never quite that straightforward. Whereas Germany in 1913 explicitly sought a foreign empire, China in 2013 publicly eschews the idea that it is an expansionist power (though it is perfectly clear about protecting its interests around the world). Whereas the German empire in 1913 had barely 40 years of history as a unified state behind it and was only slightly more populous that Britain or France, China in 2013 can look back on centuries of continuous history as a player in world affairs, and it now boasts one-fifth of the world’s population. Whereas Germany’s rise was a genuinely new geopolitical phenomenon in 1913, the rise of China today is more of a return to historical normality. These differences matter.
Similarly, the strengths and weaknesses of the United States in 2013 are not quite the same as those of Britain 100 years ago. Then, Britain benefited politically from being the world’s banker and from being the linchpin of the gold standard. Today the United States, though benefiting politically and economically from being the issuer of the world’s principal reserve currency, is hardly in the same position: The country is laden with debt. (One can argue about whether it should really be such a big issue that so much of that debt is owned by Chinese state entities — after all, Beijing can’t just dump Treasury bonds if it doesn’t get what it wants from Washington. But Chinese ownership of U.S. debt feeds a perception of American decline, and perceptions of the relative powers of states matter a lot to how other countries treat them.) There are other differences between Britain in 1913 and the United States in 2013. Britain was never a military superpower on the order of the United States today. There was never a unipolar British moment. Britain in 1913 had slipped behind Germany industrially decades before, living more and more off the proceeds of the past; the United States in 2013 is still the world’s largest economy and in many respects the most dynamic and most innovative.
Moreover, the global context in which powers rise and fall in the 21st century is not quite the same as the one of the early 20th. In 1913, a handful of empires, mostly European, ruled over most of the world. Only two countries in Africa — Ethiopia and Liberia — could claim to be truly independent. In 2013, the United Nations counts over 190 independent states among its membership. Fifty-two of these are African. In 1913, one in four of the world’s people lived in Europe; now it’s less than one in 10. And the web of international laws and institutions that bind the world together is much thicker now than it was 100 years ago, though it shouldn’t be forgotten that the Hague conventions on the laws of war date from before World War I, while the forerunner of the International Court of Justice opened its doors to the world in — you guessed it — 1913.
But the fact that historical analogies are imperfect — and the analogy between 1913 and 2013 is far from being seamless — does not make them useless. It simply means that they need to be interpreted with care. As Mark Twain put it: “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.” The task is to listen for those rhymes and to calibrate our hearing to catch them.
In the end, the utility of history to the decision-maker or to the policy analyst is not as a stock of neatly packaged lessons for the contemporary world, to be pulled off the shelf and applied formulaically to every situation. Rather, it is to hone a way of thinking about change and continuity, contingency and chance. Thinking historically can remind us of the surprises that can knock states and societies off course and, at the same time, can check our enthusiasm for believing that this time is different. The world of 1913, on the threshold of the seminal catastrophe of the 20th century yet by and large not expecting it, is a case in point. Sure, there is such a sin as misusing history — abusing history, even. But there is a much worse mistake: imagining that we have escaped it.
Technology is a common culprit here. It is often remarked that we live in an era of superfast, hypertransformative technological innovation, when history, as Henry Ford put it, is bunk. When innovation comes packaged in the form of a shiny new iPhone — the subatomic functioning of which seems pretty close to magic — it is easy to succumb to the technofantasy that we live in an entirely new age, a new era, quite unlike anything that has come before. Yet radical technological change is hardly new. The world of 1913 had its own revolutionary technologies. Radio telegraphy was being introduced, with the promise of improving the safety of shipping at sea and allowing market and strategic information to be pinged around the globe without the need for wires. Automobiles were coming off the world’s first production line — Ford’s Highland Park plant in Detroit — and being shipped around the world, including, in 1913, to the Buddhist monks of Mongolia. Oil was replacing coal to fuel the British Royal Navy — the world’s largest — pushing the Admiralty to go into the oil business in southern Iran and inaugurating modern petroleum diplomacy in the Middle East. The first feature-length Hollywood movie began shooting at the end of the year, and the first Indian film reached cinemas in Bombay. U.S. President Woodrow Wilson even used a campaign film in the presidential election of the previous year. (Its theme would be well suited to 2013: Tax the rich.)
In the end, technological advances, remarkable in themselves, change things much more than we can ever expect — the speed of adoption of new technologies is hard to predict, and the second- or third-order impacts of adoption even less so — but also much less. However new the technology, it is ultimately being grafted onto the rather old technology of the individual human, or the community, or the state. And even the newest of technologies can be manipulated for the oldest of ends. It took less than 10 years from the Wright brothers’ first flight, a truly revolutionary and liberating event in the history of humanity, to the first use of aircraft to conduct aerial bombing: over the cities of Libya in 1911 and over the Balkans in 1912 and 1913. Similarly, while the Internet was hailed 20 years ago as a force for the liberation of oppressed people around the world — and indeed many people still see it that way — authoritarian states have begun to wise up too. At the end of 2012, a rogues’ gallery of authoritarian states tried to use a U.N. conference to advance an agenda of much tighter state control of the Internet internationally. Domestically, such states are already using aspects of the Internet to contain or watch their people. The world’s second-oldest profession — espionage — has rapidly adapted itself to operations in the open, online world. Technology may be a driver of historical change, but it is subject to historical context too.
To the historically minded, the recurrence of particular themes, or particular rhymes, through history — human greed, the manipulation of technology, the importance of geography in determining military outcomes, the power of belief in shaping politics, a solid conviction that this time is different — is no surprise. You thought that the debt-fueled boom of the 2000s was different from all those other booms throughout history? Wrong. The ancient Greeks, with their understanding of greed, self-deception, hubris, and nemesis, would have been quite able to interpret the 2008 financial crisis without the need for an advanced degree in financial astrophysics from Harvard Business School. You thought pacifying Afghanistan would be a piece of cake because we have laser-guided munitions and drones these days? Not so much. You think that globalization is destined to continue forever, that interstate war is impossible, and that the onward march of democracy is ineluctable? Hang on a second; isn’t that what people thought in 1913?
The crucial point about the world 100 years ago, then, is not that it is identical to the world today — it isn’t — but that there was a time, in the not-so-distant past, when a globalized world, not entirely dissimilar to our own, fell apart. And it wasn’t because human societies were in the grip of the uncontrollable forces of destiny or that they were particularly dumb. Most just didn’t expect things to pan out the way they did. People actually living through the year 1913 did not experience those 12 months as the moody prelude to catastrophe. In retrospect, there were storm clouds on the horizon. But at the time, many people found themselves living through the best of times — or simply had other things to think about.
The world in 1913 was dynamic, modern, interconnected, smart — just like ours. 1913 was the year that the modern European art of the Armory Show conquered New York. It was the year the United States established the Federal Reserve, the essential precondition for the global financial power that it would later become, in much the same way that the emergence of the Chinese renminbi as a globally traded currency today is laying the groundwork for a Chinese challenge to American financial supremacy tomorrow. 1913 was the year Gandhi made a name for himself as a political agitator in South Africa, the year Australians laid the foundation for their new capital city, the year Russian Ballets Russes took the capitals of Europe by storm — and then did the same in Buenos Aires, then one of the richest and fastest-growing cities on Earth. In 1913, China assembled its first democratically assembled parliament, weeks after the leader of its largest party, Song Jiaoren, had been assassinated — a murder that perhaps changed the course of global history as much as the far more famous killing of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary in Sarajevo a year later. In 1913, Lenin was living in exile in the mountains of Galicia; Russia was in the middle of an industrial boom, with many believing that the moment of maximum revolutionary danger had passed and that the Tsarist Empire was on its way to becoming the dominant Eurasian power. In 1913, Japan — a country that in 60 years had gone from being a hermit empire to an expansive, industrializing Asian nation, recognized as a peer by the other great powers — was dealing with the uncertainties of a new emperor on the throne and mourning the death of the last shogun. In the last year before the Great War, Germany was Britain’s second-largest trading partner, leading many in the City of London — and across Europe — to conclude that, despite the rise of Anglo-German antagonism over naval armaments, a war between the two was unlikely. If the international solidarity of the workers did not stop a war, the self-interest of global finance would, it was argued.
Of course, there were prognosticators of gloom and doom in 1913 — just as there are in any era. But there were plenty of seasoned observers of the world then who saw the processes of internationalization all around them — of everything from the measurement of time to the laws of war — as the natural unfolding of history’s grand plan. “No country, no continent any longer lives an independent life,” wrote G.P. Gooch, a British historian, in 1913. “As the world contracts the human race grows more conscious of its unity. Ideas, ideals, and experiments make the tour of the globe. Civilisation has become international.” Many noted that economic globalization made war unprofitable; some thought it made it impossible. In 1913, as in previous years, an international exhibition was held to commemorate the advances of the world toward greater integration — held in Belgium this time, in a city that would quake with the sound of artillery shells within a year. In 1913, German Kaiser Wilhelm II was viewed by some as a peacemaker. A few years earlier, president of the University of California/Berkeley had nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize.
What does any of this say about the world in 2013?
Not that we are on the cusp of a new Great War and that, on reading this, you should head for the hills and hope for the best. There is nothing inevitable about future conflict between the great powers and there is nothing foretold about the collapse of global trade — though I would argue that both are substantially more likely now than 10 years ago. But looking at the world of 1913 reminds us that there is nothing immutable about the continuity of globalization either, and certainly nothing immutable about the Western-oriented globalization of the last few decades.
There are plenty of distinct and plausible shocks to the system that could knock our expectations of the future wildly off course — and plenty of surprises that we can neither predict nor anticipate, but that we can indirectly prepare for by attuning ourselves to the possibility of their occurrence. To take an example of one of the more plausible shocks we now face, a miscalculation in the South China Sea could easily set off a chain of events not entirely dissimilar to a shot in Sarajevo in 1914, with alliance structures, questions of prestige, escalation, credibility, and military capability turning what should be marginal to global affairs into a central question of war and peace.
In a general sense, while the United States in 2013 may not be a perfect analogue for Britain in 1913 (nor China in 2013 a perfect analogue for Germany in 1913), it is certainly the case that the world we are now entering is more similar to that of 100 years ago — a world of competitive multipolarity — than that of a quarter-century ago. Just as in 1913, technology, trade, and finance bind the world together now — and rational self-interest would suggest that the integration that these forces have brought about is irreversible. Yet, over the last few years, the world has witnessed a rise in trade protection, a breakdown in global trade negotiations, totally inadequate progress on global climate discussions, and moves to fragment the Internet. There is a corrosive and self-fulfilling sense that the dominance of the West — as the world’s rule-maker and pace-setter — is over.
Humanity is forever condemned to live with uncertainty about the future. But thinking historically equips us to better gauge that uncertainty, to temper biases, question assumptions, and stretch our imagination. By understanding the history of other countries — particularly those that are re-emerging to global eminence now — we might better understand their mindsets, hopes, and fears. And when we’ve done that, we might find we need to think again about how to build a future of our own making, rather than one decided for us by events.
The world of 1913 — brilliant, dynamic, interdependent — offers a warning. The operating system of the world in that year was taken by many for granted. In 2013, at a time of similar global flux, the biggest mistake we could possibly make is to assume that the operating system of our own world will continue indefinitely, that all we need to do is stroll into the future, and that the future will inevitably be what we want it to be. Those comforting times are over. We need to prepare ourselves for a much rougher ride ahead.
灾难迫近？与1913年惊人相似的2013年
作者：2013年1月12日 新华网翻譯
新华网北京1月12日电（记者 余南） 2013年，国际局势依然纷繁复杂，美国“财政悬崖”虽然推迟了，但风险仍然存在；欧洲在衰退中前途未卜,中东叙利亚的结局依然扑朔迷离……我们是走在摆脱危机的路上还是正接近另一场巨大危机的边缘？美国《外交政策》网站刊发了一篇查尔斯•埃默森的文章，题目为“灾难前夕 为什么这个世界在2013年看起来和一战前夕的1913年惊人的相似？”，把今年和100年前的世界做了一个有趣的对比，以下为文章的主要内容：
我们这个时代，原先全球领先的力量恰恰处在了相对衰落期，它们为国内的政治危机和不断遭到侵蚀的经济发展所困扰。同时，崛起中的国家正在世界各地争先恐后地寻求自己的位置。它们当中，有的正为自己在当前的全球秩序中寻找新的一席之地，有的则对这一秩序的合法性提出了质疑。民主和专制制度共存于一个不安的竞争体中。通过人员、贸易、货币流通以及史无前例的无视距离的新技术传播，世界经济正以前所未有的深度内联在一起。一个全球性的社会，甚至可以说是一个全球性的道德意识，正在兴起。小镇上的美国人正在搭乘华尔街的高速快轨。亚洲再度崛起，哦是的，中东仍有麻烦事。
听起来很熟悉，对吗？
1913年的世界，处于第一次世界大战前夕。当我们通过时光好奇地回放时，在许多方面，100年前的它似乎和今天的世界不怎么相像。若是我们把一个世纪的时间都压缩到眨眼这一瞬间的时候，我们不可能带着一种丝毫不觉得神秘的感觉来看待它。不过，回溯我们曾祖父母曾经生活的世界真的能帮助我们了解我们今天生活的世界吗？
让我们以一种预见的方式得到那些警告吧。历史不会重演——至少不会完全重演。一个时期同另一个时期从来没有完美的类比。
2013年，美国的长处和短处都跟100年前的英国不太一样。英国倚仗自己世界银行的身份以及金本位制度下的地位在政治上获益。今天的美国尽管凭借发行世界最主要的储备货币，从政治和经济上同时获益，但和那时的英国相比几乎处在一个完全不一样的位置：美国有庞大的国债负担。（有人或许会争论债务是否应该算作美国的大问题，因为目前美国国债最大的持有者是中国。不管怎样，如果北京没有从华盛顿得到它想要的东西，它是不会抛售美国国债的。但中国持有美国国债的事实给人一种感觉，即美国正在衰落。而这种力量此消彼长的感觉会很大程度上影响其他国家如何对待它们的态度。）此外，2013年的美国和1913年的英国之间还有其他方面的差异。英国从来就不是一个军事上的超级大国，这点和当今国际秩序中的美国不同。从来没有一个单极英国时刻。1913年，英国已经在工业上落后德国几十年了，是个越来越依靠老本的国家。2013年的美国仍然是世界上最大的经济体，在很多方面，它还是最有活力和最具创新性的。
此外，21世纪全球范围内势力强弱的消长与20世纪初是不太一样的。1913年，少数几个帝国主义国家（它们大部分来自欧洲）占据了世界上大多数国家的领土。在非洲只有两个国家——埃塞俄比亚和利比里亚——可以算得上是真正的独立国家。2013年，联合国成员中有超过190个独立国家，其中的52个国家都是非洲国家。1913年，世界人口的四分之一生活在欧洲，现在这个数字已经少于十分之一了。现在，把这个世界联系起来的国际法律和法规要比100年前厚得多。我们不应该忘记，用于战争法的海牙公约起源于第一次世界大战之前，而海牙国际法庭的前身和平宫是什么时候向世界敞开大门的呢？你猜对了，就在1913年。
事实上，历史角度的类比是不完美的。 1913年和2013年之间的类比也是如此，但并不意味着它是毫无用处的。那只是表明它们需要小心严谨的解释。正如马克•吐温所说：“历史不会重演，但它会押上韵脚。” 我们的任务就是倾听历史的韵脚，核对我们所听到的，以便捕捉到它们。
对于决策者或政策分析师来说，历史的效用并不是一包来自于当今世界、包装得整整齐齐的教程，从书架上拿下来之后就可以公式化地放之四海而皆准了。相反，它需要我们找出一种方式来思考变化和连续性，偶然性和机会。从历史的角度思考问题可以提醒我们那些使国家和社会运行中止的惊人事件，同时还可以检验我们的热情，让我们相信自己的时代是与众不同的。1913年的世界就是个很好的例子，这一年，20世纪的大灾难正处于萌芽状态。当然，误用历史是一种罪过，而滥用历史更甚。但是还有一种更糟糕的错误：想象一下我们已经逃离历史了。
技术是一个常见的罪魁祸首。历史如同亨利•福特所说，是骗人的鬼话，而科技却常常提醒我们正生活在一个超高速的时代，一个拥有革命性创新的时代。当创新表现为闪亮登场的iPhone手机时——其亚原子的运作方式非常接近于魔法——人们很容易屈服于技术的狂想曲。我们生活在一个新的阶段，一个新的时代，这和以往的任何时候都不同。然而，激进的技术变革已经不是什么新鲜事了。早在1913年，世界已经有了技术革命。无线电报被引入，提高了海上航运的安全，人们无需电线就可以访问全球各地的市场和战略信息。汽车已经走下了世界第一条生产线——它位于福特在底特律的高地公园工厂——并被运往世界各地，它们的消费者甚至包括蒙古的佛教僧侣。石油取代煤成为英国皇家海军（当时世界上最大的海军）的燃料,这些变化将英国海军部推向伊朗南部的石油业务，并开创了现代中东的石油外交。世界上第一部完整长度的好莱坞电影在这一年年底开始放映，第一部印度电影也到达了孟买的电影院。美国总统伍德罗•威尔逊甚至在他上一年度的总统选举活动中使用了电影作为宣传手段。（这部电影的主题也非常适合2013年：向富人收税。）
最后，显著的技术进步对事物的改变会超出我们的预期——采用新技术的速度是很难预测的，但从发明到第一次应用，这中间的时间是非常短的。而新技术第二次或第三次应用带来的冲击也会越来越迅速。一个技术不管有多么先进，最后总是被移植到相对较老的技术上，然后才应用于人类个体、社区和国家。之后，最先进的技术可以被最落后的个体所操纵。不到10年，莱特兄弟第一次飞行（人类历史上一次真正的革命和解放）的成果就被用于空投炸弹了：用飞机进行空中轰炸发生在1911年的利比亚，1912年和1913年的巴尔干地区。同样，20年前当互联网被人们誉为帮助世界各地被压迫人民解放的力量时——确实有很多人这么认为——独裁国家已经开始使用它为自己服务了。世界第二古老的行业——间谍——也迅速适应了这个开放的线上世界。技术或许是驱动历史变革的动力，但它也会屈从于历史背景。
从历史角度看，特定主题或是特定“韵脚”通过历史（人类的贪婪、操纵技术、决定军事行动时地理的重要性、塑造政治时信仰的力量、这个时代与众不同的坚定信念）重现是不足为奇的。你觉得2000年以来，债务推动的繁荣是不同于其它时期的繁荣吗？答案是错误的。古希腊人，在熟知人类的贪婪、自我欺骗、骄傲自大以及因此所招致的惩罚后，无需哈佛商学院的金融专业硕士学位就能很好地解释2008年的金融危机。你觉得有了激光制导弹药和无人机，平息阿富汗将是小菜一碟吗？事实并不这么简单。你觉得全球化是注定要永远持续下去的，洲际战争是不可能的，且向前的民主步伐是不可避免的吗？打住，难道在1913年人们没有这么认为吗？
100年前整个世界的关键，对今天的世界来说已经不那么重要了。 但确实存在这么一个时期，它在不那么遥远的过去，一个全球化的世界（尽管并非与我们当今的世界完全不同）四分五裂了。究其原因，并非因为人类社会是被无法控制的命运之力所左右，或是因为他们的极端愚蠢。只是人们没有预料到事情会朝后来的方向发展。经历了1913年全年的人们并没有把这12个月看成灾难的前奏。现在回想起来，在地平线上曾聚集着风暴。但在当时，很多人认为自己正生活在最好的时代，或者他们只是有其它的事情要考虑。
1913年的世界是动态的、现代的、互相联系的和智能的——就像我们当前的世界一样。1913年，现代欧洲的军械库艺术展征服了纽约。同年美国成立了联邦储备局，它成为之后全球金融力量必不可少的先决条件。今天，以一种大致相同的方式，作为一个全球性交易货币的出现，中国的人民币为中国将来挑战美国的金融霸主地位奠定了基础。1913年，圣雄甘地在南非被捕，澳大利亚人确定了他们的新首都，俄罗斯芭蕾舞团在欧洲掀起了一场风暴，然后他们在布宜诺斯艾利斯（这座城市后来成为世界上最富有的和发展最快的城市之一）获得了同样的辉煌。1913年，当时中国最大党派的领导人宋教仁被暗杀。这次谋杀就像一年以后奥匈帝国的斐迪南大公在萨拉热窝遇刺一样，改变了世界历史的进程。1913年，列宁还在加利西亚山上过着流亡生活。俄罗斯正处于工业繁荣的中心，很多人认为最大的革命危险已经过去，沙皇俄国将在欧亚大陆占据主导地位。还是1913年，日本，这个60年来一直隐居在世界舞台之外的帝国开始向外扩张，作为一个工业化的亚洲国家，它被其它大国视为对手而存在着。日本国内，新天皇刚即位的不确定性和对最后一位幕府将军的哀悼同时并存。在一战前的最后一年，德国已经成为英国的第二大贸易伙伴，这让伦敦和整个欧洲得出了下面的结论，即尽管英德在海军军备上进行着竞赛，但二者之间的战争是不可能的。如果国际工人们的团结没有阻止战争的来临，那么全球金融自身的利益也会阻止它。
当然，和任何其它时代一样，1913年也有预见到黑暗和厄运的预言家。世界各地有很多经验丰富的观察员，他们将自己周围的一切国际化进程——从测量时间到战争法的所有事情——都看作是水到渠成的历史演化的宏伟计划。“没有一个国家和一个大陆是单独存在的，“ 英国历史学家，古奇﹒G.P.在1913年写道，“全球合约化之后，人类对他们的统一性更加自觉了。思想、理想和试验造就了全球化之旅。文明已经国际化了。”很多人指出，经济全球化使战争无利可图；有些人认为这使战争成为不可能。像往年一样，1913年举办了国际展览会，以纪念世界的进步和走向更大的整合。而举办国比利时在会后一年内就颤抖在炮火的轰鸣中了。1913年，德国皇帝威廉二世被一些人视为国际上的和事佬。就在几年前，加州和伯克利大学的校长还打算提名他为诺贝尔和平奖获得者呢。
那么，上面说的这些和2013年的世界有关吗？
这并不是说我们正在一场新的世界大战的边缘，在读了这些之后，应该逃往山林并祈求最好的结局。未来大国之间的冲突并非是不可避免的，也没有什么确凿的证据预示全球贸易的崩溃——尽管我认为这些情况实际上比10年前更容易发生。不过，回顾1913年的世界可以提醒我们，关于全球化的连续性，没有什么是一成不变的，当然几十年来西方主导的全球化也不是一成不变的。
现有体系内，存在很多独特与貌似合理的冲击，让我们的预期疯狂地偏离了航线；还有很多意想不到的事，我们很难预测和参与，但我们可以为这些可能发生的事情做好间接的准备。
一般来说，把2013年的美国和1913年的英国做类比不是很合适。不过肯定的是，我们现在的世界比25年前更像100年前——它是一个竞争的多极化世界。正如1913年那样，技术、贸易和金融把我们今天的世界联系在一起。理性的利己主义告诉我们，这些力量所带来的整合是不可逆转的。然而在过去几年中，贸易保护正在抬头，全球贸易谈判破裂，对全球气候变化的讨论完全不足，互联网出现分裂。有一种激烈的、认为其会自我应验的言论认为，西方的主导地位——作为世界规则制定者的地位——正在终结。
人类注定要永远生活在对未来的不确定性中。但是从历史角度思考问题可以让我们更好地了解这种不确定性，纠正偏见，质疑假设，并延伸我们的想象力。通过了解其它国家——尤其是那些重新在世界上取得显赫地位的国家——的历史，我们可以更好地了解它们的心态、期望和恐惧的事情。当我们这样做了之后，我们可能会发现，我们需要重新思考在未来如何建立一个我们自己创造的历史进程，而不是一个由过去的事件所决定好了的进程。
1913年的世界——一个辉煌的、动态的、相互依存的世界——为我们提出了警告。在这一年里，世界的运行机制被许多人当成是理所当然的。在2013年，当面对类似的全球变动时，我们可能犯下的最大错误就是设想现存世界的运行机制会永远继续下去，我们需要做的仅仅是漫步到未来，未来就会不可避免地变成我们希望它变成的样子。这些令人欣慰的时代已经过去。我们需要为一个更为艰难的旅程做好准备。
