Like other recent systemic crises, the coronavirus pandemic has confronted us with an inconvenient truth: the risks associated with international openness might very well outweigh the gains. If today's multilateral frameworks are to have a future, they must be brought back into the service of national sovereignty.
BERLIN – As Winston Churchill once observed, too many people who “stumble over the truth” will “pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.” But in the case of COVID-19, the world has been confronted with uncomfortable facts that are impossible to ignore. Like the 2008 financial crash and the 2015 refugee crisis in Europe, the pandemic has fully exposed a deep vulnerability to systemic threats.
BERLIN – As Winston Churchill once observed, too many people who “stumble over the truth” will “pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.” But in the case of COVID-19, the world has been confronted with uncomfortable facts that are impossible to ignore. Like the 2008 financial crash and the 2015 refugee crisis in Europe, the pandemic has fully exposed a deep vulnerability to systemic threats.