Our unraveling world is history repeating itself.

As I watch in horror at the horrific acts of terrorism in Moscow, the brutal violence in Gaza and Ukraine, and the proliferation of wars and crises around the world, I am reminded of historian Will Durant’s statement:

“It takes a century to go from barbarism to civilization. It takes only one day to go from civilization to barbarism.”

It is not just the seemingly unfortunate and proxy US entanglements in Gaza and Ukraine that continue to defy 24/7 efforts to de-escalate and resolve. It’s not just the wave of conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, the Belt that stretches from West Africa to East Africa, or the Serb unrest in the Baltic states. And it’s not just unstable economic nationalism and growing protectionism that has prompted the International Monetary Fund to warn of “geoeconomic fragmentation.”

Rather, it is the combined effect of all of them, called a polycrisis: A cascade of simultaneous disasters further exacerbates the effects of disasters (Ukraine, food shortages, climate change). This amalgamation illuminates the specter of a world spinning out of control during the most uncertain and conflict-filled era since World War II.

But don’t just take my word for it. The Intelligence Community (IC) detailed the threat in 41 pages of mind-boggling detail in its annual Global Threat Assessment last month. Their conclusion is:

“The United States faces an increasingly fragile world order, heightened by increased strategic competition among great powers, increasingly intense and unpredictable cross-border challenges, and multiple regional conflicts with far-reaching implications. There is.”

The IC report details the situation facing U.S. policymakers, stating that “states and non-state actors struggle in this evolving world order, including great power competition and common transnational challenges. “Regional and local conflicts and instability will require U.S. attention.”

A passage attributed to Mark Twain advises, “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.” Unfortunately, as we look at trends in great power competition, tariff wars, and weaponized interdependence aimed at national interests, as a recent essay in Foreign Affairs magazine convincingly argues, by 1930 I can’t help but see the similarities with the era.

The echoes of the past are clearly visible in these two blocks, which are slowly solidifying. The United States and its European and Asian allies on the one hand, and the China-Russia-Eurasian Entente on the other, continue to face increasing friction in Ukraine and the Taiwan Strait.

Similarly, in the economic realm, U.S.-China tariff wars, sanctions, and other measures of economic coercion by competing powers have been as powerful as the Smoot-Hawley Act, which ushered in the global economic collapse as well as the bank failures of 1929. It is still far from having any influence. The Great Depression of the 1930s. Institutions and rules are fraying, trade growth has slowed, and geopolitical forces have strengthened, but it has not collapsed.

However, the IMF is concerned that if these trends intensify, they could reduce global economic growth by up to 7% in the long term. And, as happened in the 1930s, economic instability tends to make the world more prone to conflict.

Perhaps most troubling is that there appears to be historical amnesia in both the geopolitical and economic realms. Looking at the tensions between the United States and China over Taiwan, for example, it appears that the lessons of the Cold War have been forgotten.

how? One of the big differences between today and the 1930s is the risk of the existence of nuclear weapons. When we think of Taiwan’s plight, the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 comes to mind. When the United States and the Soviet Union narrowly avoided catastrophe. Recent research on this watershed event, enriched by the release of U.S. and Soviet archives, suggests that both Kennedy and Kruschev feared setting off a nuclear explosion.

However, in the current mutual demonization of the United States and China, the fiery rhetoric surrounding Taiwan appears to lack the constraints of potential nuclear destruction. It sometimes appears that both countries feel the inevitability of war and are eagerly preparing for it.

The Cuban Missile Crisis was one of several forces that led the United States and the Soviet Union to gradually realize that their vulnerability required a degree of restraint, that is, that they needed means to manage strategic competition. It was one of those events. That led to the architecture of arms control to limit the arms race.

However, as the resurgence of great power conflict with Russia and China accelerated, the entire arms control framework disintegrated. The last remaining vestige of the New START agreement, which limits U.S.-Russian nuclear weapons, is set to expire in 2026, and President Putin announced that Russia would cease participating in the agreement. The US does not have a nuclear agreement with China. However, all three powers are modernizing and expanding their arsenals.

Perhaps Mark Twain was on to something. Some historians, such as Peter Turchin, see repeated cycles of history in the disharmony of time, rise and fall, consolidation and collapse. Although they acknowledge that nothing is inevitable—that humans have agency—the trends described here are alarming.

Looking back at the 1930s and the conflicts that followed, the lessons of history seem clear. Can active diplomacy find a balance of power, a framework to manage competitive coexistence with China? Can the institutions that make up the post-World War II order – the World Bank, the IMF, the World Trade Organization – be reformed and updated to meet current challenges?

Both are possible. But history shows that learning from it tends to be the exception rather than the norm.

Robert A. Manning is a distinguished fellow at the Stimson Center. He previously served as Senior Advisor to the Under Secretary of State for World Affairs, on the policy planning staff of the U.S. Secretary of State, and as a member of the Strategic Futures Group of the National Intelligence Council. X/ Follow him on Twitter @Rmanning4.