A shock—either a military conflict at the scale of a world war or an economic/fiscal crisis—will likely be necessary to return to some form of rules-based order in which big countries feel it is in their interest to follow inconvenient rules, absent which there is no clear mechanism for reform other than bottom-up pressure from public opinion.
forecastpending
Speaker
Ben RhodesEvidence Quote
“I think what it's going to take uh unfortunately is some kind of shock you know um it took the shock of World War I... we we going to need a shock and I would hope that that shock Is Not Another War like of that scale... there could be an economic or fiscal shock you know um that might scare people straight... there's just something unsustainable about you know levels of spending deficits”
Source
Ben Rhodes: The Warren and Anita Manshel Lecture in American Foreign Policy— Weatherhead Center for International AffairsCreated: 8/11/2026, 7:23:32 AM
My Notes
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