In every era, people try to draw comparisons with historical events in order to use them as examples and, if possible, to learn from them. There are plenty of such comparisons today. For example, macro investor Ray Dalio argues that we are entering a period resembling the upheavals before 1945. According to his six-stage scale, we are currently at level five. The sixth and final stage would already be an era of major disorder.

Here I will focus on comparing the present with the period preceding World War I, drawing on Yale historian Odd Arne Westad's 2026 book "The Coming Storm: Power, Conflict and Warnings From History". I do not fully agree with everything in the book — especially regarding the war in Ukraine — but that is not the topic here.

According to Westad, we are entering a period in which several great powers are competing for dominance across regions and across fields of human activity such as nuclear technology, artificial intelligence, and space exploration. Trade, which had become freer for previous generations, is increasingly constrained and fragile, and trade wars are emerging between major states. The world feels more unfamiliar to us based on our past experiences, yet it somewhat resembles the world more than a hundred years ago — from the late nineteenth century to 1914, the year war broke out.

Back then, great powers also clashed. Nationalism and populism were on the rise, and many felt that globalization had not benefited them. Protectionism grew, tariffs were increasingly used, and people more frequently blamed citizens of other countries for their own problems. Immigration and terrorism were also major issues.

That world ended in a cataclysmic war that set global economic development back by a couple of decades. A war among today's great powers would be even worse — even without the use of nuclear weapons. Human development would be pushed back by a generation.

Much like the pre-1914 period, various forms of nationalism are playing an increasing role in politics. This ranges from Xi Jinping's ambitions to restore China's greatness, to Vladimir Putin's attempts to create a new Russian empire, to anti-foreign sentiment in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, and France. Negative attitudes toward others underlie many conflicts.

Another alarming similarity to a century ago is the growing accumulation of mutual accusations among great powers. This is especially evident in relations between the United States and China.

There has also been a shift away from U.S. hegemony. China's technological development, Russia's open assertiveness, and India's increasingly confident behavior are just the first signs of a new order. Before World War I, British hegemony was declining; the old empires of Russia and Austria sought to dominate their regions; and a unified Germany rose rapidly to become Europe's strongest power. Leaders without wartime experience tended to see war — or the threat of it — as a solution to their problems, unable to imagine the consequences of their actions.

If we map Westad's historical comparison geopolitically, the picture looks like this: China is the modern equivalent of early twentieth-century Germany — a rising power pushing for great-power status. The United States is the new Britain — a declining hegemon increasingly unwilling to bear the costs of maintaining its status. Russia resembles the former Austro-Hungarian Empire — a crumbling power trying to remain relevant. India, meanwhile, could be likened to France at the time, dealing with internal cohesion, regional standing, historical divisions, and fears of falling behind in development.

The picture today is more complex, as the number of actors has grown, but many phenomena remain similar. The unique position the United States held after World War II is now in question. As with Britain at the end of the nineteenth century, other states have eroded U.S. advantages in an effort to reestablish a multipolar world. And just as the British once did, the Americans have weakened their global position in our century through costly and unnecessary wars, unclear strategic priorities, and domestic social and economic decline.

To Westad's assessment, we might add the example of current U.S. military activity against Iran alongside Israel. Here too, there is a lack of clear strategic goals, misjudgments about how events would unfold, and erratic, even childish behavior from President Donald Trump — though the latter should not come as a surprise.

China, as noted, is a major and visible driver of change, much like Germany once was. Its rapid rise has created fears both among its neighbors and globally. Unlike imperial Germany, however, Chinese leaders emphasize that the country's development has been largely peaceful, even as its military is the largest in the world and defense spending is rising rapidly.

Like Kaiser Wilhelm, Xi Jinping does not hide his disdain for democrats, business leaders, labor organizers, student activists, and regional power holders. The elite of the Chinese Communist Party increasingly behaves like the Prussian Junker class, equating its own views with those of the nation and its interests. And as with Wilhelm and his successors, Xi and the Communist Party maintain full control over the armed forces.

In Russia, Vladimir Putin has turned the country away from the West and toward China. He is not — and has never been — a communist, but rather a hardline conservative Russian nationalist who yearns for empire. As in many cases more than a century ago, the most dangerous aspect of Putin's attempts to restore Russia's greatness lies in their unpredictability — especially since he lacks both the resources and the intellectual clarity to achieve this goal. Putin has a vague vision of a "Russian world" that needs to be rebuilt, reminiscent of the Habsburg belief that their state represented a dividing line between stability and chaos in Central Europe.

Overall, we now appear to be moving toward a form of international politics that the world has not seen since the early twentieth century. I will set aside economic powers such as Japan and the European Union. In the EU's case, perhaps the most notable trend is the growing inclination among more leaders toward greater independence from the United States, driven in part by doubts about whether the U.S. intends to fulfill its alliance commitments at all.

Few modern leaders see war as the best solution, yet war can arise from misunderstandings or miscalculations. Westad concludes that alternatives to war are needed. What those alternatives should be is a separate question.

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