What Could Stop Globalization

From the CIA's National Intelligence Council report on the world in 2020:

The process of globalization, powerful as it is, could be substantially slowed or even stopped. Short of a major global conflict, which we regard as improbable, another large-scale development that we believe could stop globalization would be a pandemic. However, other catastrophic developments, such as terrorist attacks, could slow its speed.

Some experts believe it is only a matter of time before a new pandemic appears, such as the 1918–1919 influenza virus that killed an estimated 20 million worldwide. Such a pandemic in megacities of the developing world with poor health-care systems—in Sub-Saharan Africa, China, India, Bangladesh or Pakistan—would be devastating and could spread rapidly throughout the world. Globalization would be endangered if the death toll rose into the millions in several major countries and the spread of the disease put a halt to global travel and trade during an extended period, prompting governments to expend enormous resources on overwhelmed health sectors. On the positive side of the ledger, the response to SARS showed that international surveillance and control mechanisms are becoming more adept at containing diseases, and new developments in biotechnologies hold the promise of continued improvement.

A slow-down could result from a pervasive sense of economic and physical insecurity that led governments to put controls on the flow of capital, goods, people, and technology that stalled economic growth. Such a situation could come about in response to terrorist attacks killing tens or even hundreds of thousands in several US cities or in Europe or to widespread cyber attacks on information technology. Border controls and restrictions on technology exchanges would increase economic transaction costs and hinder innovation and economic growth. Other developments that could stimulate similar restrictive policies include a popular backlash against globalization prompted, perhaps, by white collar rejection of outsourcing in the wealthy countries and/or resistance in poor countries whose peoples saw themselves as victims of globalization.

It seems to me that the only relevant data point we have on this is the Victorian Globalization period that was ended by World War One and the ensuing twenty five year period of devastation. This, I assume, is what leads the NIC to conclude that "a major global conflict" globalization will basically continue, either faster or slower. But when assessing why they "regard as improbable" such a conflict, they prominently cite the growing economic interdependence produced by globalization. This argument was, I believe, prominent in the pre-world war one period, in which authors argued (correctly, as it turns out) that war between the great powers would have disastrous consequences for all and that, therefore (incorrectly) the powers would avoid it. And of course, military conflict between the great powers was unlikely in the early 20th century. it didn't happen in 1900 or 1901 or 1902 or 1903 or 1904 or 1905 or 1906 or 1907 or 1908 or 1909 or 1910 or 1911 or 1912 or 1913. And then one day, well. . . .

So while it certainly is unlikely, I wouldn't be too sure. The confidence we can have in avoiding major great power conflict and continuing the beneficial integration of the world has a great deal to do with the extent to which the world's political leaders understand how bad the consequences of renewed confict would be.