The G-20 Summit at Five: Time for Strategic Leadership

The leaders level G-20 was born at a time of crisis and panic.¹ In early October 2008, when the United States issued the invitation to the G-20 heads of state or government to assemble in Washington, D.C., on November 15, the world was facing the danger of a total collapse of the financial sector in the United States. With global trade and financial links having grown over the decades, particularly after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, a financial collapse in the largest economyand the financial centerof the world would have brought down the entire world