Avoidable Armageddon

Global investors can help avoid another 1914

Today's global investors can help avoid a repeat of 1914. The Sarajevo assassination of an archduke a century ago could have remained no more than a local tragedy. Instead, it turned into World War One. Businesses and financiers with a broad worldview can help prevent such an escalation happening again.

Archduke Franz Ferdinand, the heir of Austria-Hungary's Emperor Franz Josef, was a reformer who wanted to defuse tensions by giving more autonomy to the empire's Slavic peoples. Extreme Serbian nationalists, who wanted a Serb-controlled Slavic empire, saw him as an enemy.

The death of the would-be peacemaker led to an uncompromising ultimatum from Austria-Hungary to Serbia, a hard line which the archduke himself would probably have opposed. Germany encouraged Austria-Hungary and Serbia's protectors in Russia responded firmly, backed by Russia's allies France and England. The result was the hugely destructive Great War. The ultimatum needn't have happened at all. Even the assassination of Franz Josef's wife, Elizabeth, by an Italian anarchist 16 years earlier had not triggered such an intransigent response. Almost always, there's a better way.

In 2014, Russia annexed Crimea and destabilised eastern Ukraine. Iraq is close to civil war. There are territorial disputes between China and its neighbors. Terrorist attacks around the world also loom large. Drawing hard lines and enforcing existing alliances and treaties to the letter could easily turn one flare-up into another 1914.

But Russia's economy is much more dependent on exports these days than a hundred years ago, and its elite are active in foreign markets.

Even early 20th-century Germany pales beside modern China as a manufacturer and exporter. Businesses and investors think of markets as global now. It's not always good that the money men have the ear of governments today, perhaps as never before. But when it comes to keeping the peace, it's an advantage.