Picture this: It’s 1933. The League of Nations is struggling for legitimacy as Germany and Japan withdraw, driven by swelling imperial ambitions. The international order is fracturing, giving way to what Bridgewater Associates founder Ray Dalio calls “the law of the jungle,” where raw power, not diplomacy, determines global outcomes. Dalio predicts we’re headed in that direction.
The billionaire investor made an X (formerly Twitter) post Saturday titled “It’s Official: The World Order Has Broken Down,” pronouncing the modern global order dead. The billionaire investor cited a recent report from the Munich Security Conference, a global forum for discussing international security challenges. The report, titled “Under Destruction,” claims the world has entered an era of “wrecking-ball politics” where “sweeping destruction—rather than careful reforms and policy corrections—is the order of the day.”
“There is great disorder arising from being in a period in which there are no rules, might is right, and there is a clash of great powers,” Dalio wrote in his X post, referencing his 2021 book Principles for Dealing With the Changing World Order. In his book, he evaluates 500 years of human history to explain why some empires succeed and others fail, describing a six-stage, 80-year cycle that tracks the evolution of monetary policy and international order.
