| This paper argues that major historical conflicts and crises have been triggered by national debts. These debts have led leaders to make inadvisable or, at least, impolitic choices. Such policies would not have been adopted but for the presence of debt obligations.;Thus debts have led to critical decisions that shaped historical outcomes. The paper examines a series of historical and current cases to demonstrate the impact of the Debt Trigger: the American Revolution, the French Revolution, the break up of Yugoslavia, the 1998 Russian default and the current debt crisis in Romania. It considers the manner in which the Trigger has interacted with leaders, such as King Louis 16th of France, institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund and other causal factors, such as nationalism. |
