Dear asdf, I agree with you that global factors played an important role back in the past( as you have mentioned), but now we live in a time of great technological, economic, and political transformation.
The speed and the global scale of the occuring events are essential. I do not want to engage in predictions, but if there is a major crisis, which will shatter the society, it will probably happen overnight, not in the span of years as it was back in history; and the problem is that we will not be prepared for it.

I'm not ugly,but my beauty is a total creation.Hegel