Damiano Palano

At the end of War and Peace, after leading the reader through hundreds of pages, Leo Tolstoy asked, “What is the force that moves nations?”. This question is essentially the same one scholars have asked in their efforts to explain social phenomena. What forces drive states to make decisions? What compels citizens to obey or disobey those in power? And what drives the constant fluctuations of markets?

Over the past two centuries, countless theories have attempted to answer these questions - some focusing on the micro level and the interactions between individuals, while others examine the macro level, where states, organizations and corporations operate. All these theories have sought, with varying degrees of ambition, to “grasp” the force Tolstoy described and to identify the links between causes and effects. Yet even the most compelling theories and the most sophisticated models have never been able to eliminate the inherent margin of uncertainty and unpredictability that accompanies human actions and international relations. History has never ceased to surprise us, to take unforeseen turns and to challenge all forms of determinism. And the world remains a dense web of interrelationships that cannot be reduced to simplistic models or explanations.

Thirty years ago, in 1995, when Aseri (Alta Scuola di Economia e Relazioni Internazionali) was founded, the world was markedly different from what we see today. A few years had passed since the end of the Cold War, and the world seemed to have entered a completely new historical phase, distinct from the “age of extremes” that had defined much of the twentieth century. History truly seemed to be “over” - not because the sequence of events had come to a halt (as Francis Fukuyama’s use of the Hegelian formula has often been simplistically dismissed in public debate) but in a way reminiscent of the Battle of Jena in 1806, when Napoleon’s army defeated the Prussian forces, marking the triumph of the ideals of the French Revolution over the values of the old regime.

With the end of the Cold War, liberal democracy had overcome the great ideologies that had opposed its dominance throughout the twentieth century. The principles and institutions of the liberal international order, developed after the Second World War, now had the potential to expand globally, creating, perhaps for the first time in history, a truly “global” market. The flow of goods, capital, information, and people formed an intricate network that reached nearly every corner of the planet, often transforming lives at an astonishing pace.

The new School of Economics and International Relations at the Catholic University was born from the far-sighted intuition that the world was undergoing a profound transformation and would never be the same again. New tools and innovative approaches were needed to understand these changes, which soon came to be called globalization. Year after year, the headquarters in Via San Vittore became a hub for academics, entrepreneurs, analysts and international practitioners who, with their expertise, gradually built a toolbox for interpreting the evolving dynamics of international relations - the shifting interactions between states, the logic of the new wars, the role of global civil society, the process of European integration, and the complexities of the relationship between the “global” and the “local.”

Thirty years later, little remains of that world. The principles and institutions of the liberal international order are under attack on multiple fronts. The “old war” (which, in truth, never entirely disappeared) has returned to the European continent, and state behavior increasingly follows the principles of classic realpolitik, making the arms race a widespread imperative. Even democratic institutions, once thought unshakable, now appear increasingly fragile, even in parts of the world where they were once considered most stable.

From the perspective of 2025, the optimism of 1995 may seem excessive - perhaps even naive. But this perception is, to some extent, inevitable, as each generation tends to view the previous one as naïver. Indeed, optimism was a defining feature of the 1990s, and the euphoria of the “new world” was widespread. However, it would be unfair to dismiss this optimism as mere naivety. While we can predict the weather with mathematical models, we cannot anticipate a leader’s political decisions or the collapse of an authoritarian regime, because observing a political phenomenon inevitably alters reality and, consequently, the behavior of the actors involved. When we make predictions about future scenarios, we shape the perceptions of those who hear them. If some analysts in the past were overly optimistic, an excess of pessimism would not have yielded better results. Ultimately, decisions are made by people, and there is always an element of unpredictability in human interactions. This unpredictability may bring unpleasant surprises but it is also a reflection of the freedom that defines us.

Tolstoy’s question remains unanswered. And for a long time to come, we will continue to ask, “What is the force that moves nations?” without ever finding a definitive answer that resolves all uncertainty. Nevertheless, in its thirty years of existence, Aseri has never claimed to offer deterministic predictions. Instead, it has sought to train professionals, researchers, and officials capable of understanding the complexities of the present. Because to make decisions, it is essential - if not decisive - to understand the logic of the actors one is dealing with. And while the course of world history will - fortunately - remain unpredictable, we will continue our efforts to interpret its transformations and to prepare our students to meet its challenges. Especially in an era of uncertainty, we will persist in imagining the world of tomorrow.