New Delhi, Sept. 22 -- STATES ARE pulling against the ties that hold the world together. Trade volume is at an all-time high, yet protectionism has hit levels unseen in a generation. Conflicts claim nearly a quarter of a million lives a year-double the toll of a decade ago-and are increasingly connected through the very systems that drive global prosperity. Interdependence itself, a defining achievement of the post-war order, has become its most contested terrain.

Consider the Strait of Hormuz. The conflict there is reaching countries far beyond the range of any missile, through the cost of energy and fertilisers, and thus food prices and bond yields. Tools of co-operation-payment networks, maritime transport, supply-chain nodes-have bec...