---
type: source
title: "Leo Synthesis — The Domestic/International Governance Split: COVID-19 and Cybersecurity Confirm That Triggering Events Alone Cannot Produce International Treaty Governance When Enabling Conditions Are Absent"
author: "Leo (cross-domain synthesis from COVID-19 governance record, cybersecurity governance 35-year record, post-2008 financial regulation, Ottawa Treaty analysis)"
url: https://archive/synthesis
date: 2026-04-02
domain: grand-strategy
secondary_domains: [mechanisms, ai-alignment]
format: synthesis
status: processed
processed_by: leo
processed_date: 2026-04-04
priority: high
tags: [domestic-governance, international-governance, triggering-event, covid-governance, cybersecurity-governance, financial-regulation-2008, ottawa-treaty, strategic-utility, enabling-conditions, governance-level-split, belief-1, pharmaceutical-model, ai-governance, pandemic-treaty, basel-iii, covax, stuxnet, wannacry, solarwinds]
flagged_for_theseus: ["Domestic/international governance split has direct implications for RSP adequacy analysis. RSPs are domestic corporate governance instruments — they don't operate at the international coordination level where AI racing dynamics and existential risks live. The adequacy question should distinguish: adequate for what governance level?"]
flagged_for_clay: ["COVID governance failure activated nationalism (vaccine nationalism) not internationalism — the narrative frame of a natural threat activates domestic protection instincts, not outrage at international coordination failure. For triggering events to produce international AI governance, the narrative framing may need to personify coordination failure as caused by identifiable actors (analogous to Princess Diana's landmine campaign targeting specific parties) rather than AI systems as natural hazards. Session 2026-04-02 developed this in more detail."]
extraction_model: "anthropic/claude-sonnet-4.5"
---

## Content

**Source materials synthesized:**
- COVID-19 governance record (2020-2026): COVAX delivery data, IHR amendments (June 2024), Pandemic Agreement (CA+) negotiation status as of April 2026
- Cybersecurity governance record (1988-2026): GGE outcomes, Paris Call (2018), Budapest Convention (2001), 35-year incident record (Stuxnet, WannaCry, NotPetya, SolarWinds, Colonial Pipeline)
- Post-2008 financial regulation: Dodd-Frank, Basel III, FSB establishment, correspondent banking network effects
- Ottawa Treaty (1997) strategic utility analysis: why major powers opted out and why this was tolerable
- Existing KB enabling conditions framework (experimental confidence): `technology-governance-coordination-gaps-close-when-four-enabling-conditions-are-present`
- Pharmaceutical governance session (2026-04-01): triggering events → domestic regulatory reform in 56 years

**The central synthesis finding:**

The enabling conditions framework correctly predicts that 0 conditions → no governance convergence. But the framework is missing a critical dimension: **governance level (domestic vs. international) requires categorically different enabling conditions.**

---

### Section 1: The COVID-19 Test

COVID-19 is the largest triggering event (Condition 1 at maximum strength) available in modern international governance history. Scale: 7+ million confirmed deaths, global economic disruption. Visibility: maximum. Attribution: clear. Emotional resonance: maximum (ICU death footage, vaccine queue imagery). Exceeded pharmaceutical triggering events by every metric.

**Domestic governance result (strong):** Every major economy reformed pandemic preparedness legislation, created emergency authorization pathways, expanded health system capacity. National health agencies gained regulatory authority. Domestic-level triggering event → domestic governance worked as the pharmaceutical model predicts.

**International governance result (weak/partial):**
- COVAX: 1.9 billion doses delivered by end 2022, but equity goal failed (62% coverage high-income vs. 2% low-income by mid-2021). Structurally dependent on voluntary donations, subordinated to vaccine nationalism.
- IHR Amendments (June 2024): Adopted but significantly diluted from original proposals. Sovereignty objections reduced WHO emergency authority. 116 amendments passed but binding compliance weakened.
- Pandemic Agreement (CA+): Negotiations began 2021, mandated to conclude May 2024, deadline extended, still unsigned as of April 2026. PABS (pathogen access/benefit sharing) and equity obligations remain unresolved. Major sticking points: binding vs. voluntary obligations, WHO authority scope.

**The COVID diagnostic:** Six years after the largest triggering event in 80 years, no binding international pandemic treaty exists. This is not advocacy failure — it is structural failure. The same sovereignty conflicts, competitive stake dynamics (vaccine nationalism), and commercial self-enforcement absence that prevent AI governance also prevented COVID governance at the international level.

**Why domestic succeeded and international failed:**
- Domestic: One jurisdiction, democratic accountability, political will from visible domestic harm, regulatory body can impose requirements unilaterally. Triggering events work.
- International: 193 jurisdictions, no enforcement authority, sovereignty conflicts, commercial interests override coordination incentives, competitive stakes (vaccine nationalism, economic reopening) dominate even during the crisis itself. Triggering events necessary but insufficient.

---

### Section 2: Cybersecurity — 35-Year Natural Experiment

Cybersecurity provides the cleanest test of the zero-conditions prediction with the longest track record:

**Major triggering events with governance response:**
- Stuxnet (2010): First offensive cyberweapon against critical infrastructure. US/Israel. No governance response.
- WannaCry (2017): 200,000+ targets, 150 countries, NHS severely disrupted. US/UK attribution. No governance framework produced.
- NotPetya (2017): $10B+ global damage (Merck, Maersk, FedEx). Russian military. Diplomatic protest. No governance.
- SolarWinds (2020): Russian SVR compromise of US government networks. US executive order on cybersecurity. No international framework.
- Colonial Pipeline (2021): Major US fuel infrastructure shutdown. CISA guidance. No international framework.

**International governance attempts (all failed):**
- UN GGE: Agreed norms in 2013, 2015, 2021. Non-binding. No verification. Broke down completely in 2021 when GGE failed to agree.
- Paris Call (2018): Non-binding declaration, ~1,100 signatories, Russia and China refused to sign, US initially refused.
- Budapest Convention (2001): 67 state parties, primarily Western; Russia and China did not sign; limited to cybercrime, not state-on-state operations.

**Zero-conditions diagnosis:** Cybersecurity has exactly the AI condition profile — diffuse non-physical harms, high strategic utility (major powers maintain offensive programs), peak competitive stakes, no commercial network effects for compliance, attribution-resistant. 35 years of increasingly severe triggering events have produced zero binding international framework. This is the more accurate AI governance analog than pharmaceutical domestic regulation.

---

### Section 3: Financial Regulation — Why Partial International Success

Post-2008 financial regulation partially succeeded internationally (Basel III, FSB) despite high competitive stakes. Understanding why reveals what enabling conditions do the work at the international level:

**Commercial network effects (Condition 2): PRESENT and decisive.** International banks need correspondent banking relationships to clear cross-border transactions. Basel III compliance is commercially self-enforcing — non-compliant banks face higher costs and difficulty maintaining US/EU banking partnerships. This is the exact mechanism of TCP/IP adoption (non-adoption = network exclusion). Basel III didn't require binding treaty enforcement because market exclusion was the enforcement mechanism.

**Verifiable financial records (Condition 4 partial): PRESENT.** Financial flows go through trackable systems (SWIFT, central bank settlement, audited financial statements). Compliance is verifiable in ways that AI safety compliance and cybersecurity compliance are not.

**Implication for AI:** AI lacks both of these. Safety compliance imposes costs without commercial advantage. AI capability is software, non-physical, unverifiable without interpretability breakthroughs. This is the specific explanation for why "financial regulation shows triggering events can produce international governance" is wrong as an AI analog — finance has Conditions 2 and 4; AI has neither.

**Policy insight from financial case:** IF AI safety certification could be made a prerequisite for cloud provider relationships, insurance, or international financial services access — artificially creating Condition 2 — international governance through commercial self-enforcement might become tractable. This is the most actionable pathway from today's analysis.

---

### Section 4: Ottawa Treaty — Why the Champion Pathway Requires Low Strategic Utility

The Ottawa Treaty is the strongest available counter-example: international governance achieved through triggering events + champion pathway (ICBL + Princess Diana + Canada's procedural end-run around the UN) without requiring great-power participation.

**Why it worked:** Landmines had already become militarily marginal for major powers by 1997. US, Russia, and China chose not to sign — and this was tolerable because their non-participation didn't undermine the treaty's effectiveness for the populations at risk (conflict-zone civilians, smaller militaries). The stigmatization campaign could achieve its goals with major power opt-out.

**Why it doesn't apply to frontier AI:** The capabilities that matter for existential risk have HIGH strategic utility, and major power participation is ESSENTIAL for the treaty to address the risks. If the US, China, and Russia opt out of AI frontier capability governance (as they opted out of Ottawa), the treaty achieves nothing relevant to existential risk — because those three powers are the primary developers of the capabilities requiring governance.

**The stratified conclusion:** The Ottawa model applies to medium-utility AI weapons (loitering munitions, counter-UAS — where degraded major-power compliance is tolerable). It does not apply to frontier AI capability governance where major power participation is the entire point. This closes the "Ottawa Treaty analog for AI existential risk" pathway.

---

### Section 5: The AI Governance Dual-Level Problem

AI governance requires BOTH governance levels simultaneously:

**Level 1 (Domestic AI regulation):** Analogous to pharmaceutical domestic regulation. Eventually achievable through triggering events. Timeline: very long (decades) absent major harms; potentially 5-15 years after severe domestic incidents. What it can achieve: commercial AI deployment standards, liability frameworks, mandatory safety testing, disclosure requirements. What it cannot achieve: international racing dynamics control, frontier capability limits, cross-border existential risk management.

**Level 2 (International AI governance):** Analogous to cybersecurity international governance (not pharmaceutical domestic). Zero enabling conditions currently. Historical analogy prediction: multiple decades of triggering events without binding framework. What this level needs to achieve: frontier capability controls, international safety standards, racing dynamic prevention, cross-border incident response. What would change the trajectory (ranked by feasibility):
1. Constructed Condition 2: Commercial network effects engineered through cloud provider certification requirements, insurance mandates, or financial services prerequisites. Only mechanism available without geopolitical shift.
2. Security architecture (Condition 5 from nuclear case): Dominant power creates AI capability access program substituting for allied independent frontier development. No evidence this is being attempted.
3. Triggering event + reduced strategic utility moment: Low probability these coincide; requires a failure that simultaneously demonstrates harm and reduces the competitive value of the specific capability.

**The compound difficulty:** AI governance is not "hard like pharmaceutical (56 years)." It is "hard like pharmaceutical for Level 1 AND hard like cybersecurity for Level 2, both simultaneously." Level 1 progress does not substitute for Level 2 progress — domestic EU AI Act compliance doesn't address US-China racing dynamics.

---

## Agent Notes

**Why this matters:** The pharmaceutical analogy gives false comfort — "yes, AI governance will take 56 years but eventually triggering events drive reform." Today's synthesis shows this is wrong for the governance level that matters: international coordination. The correct analogy for international AI governance is cybersecurity — 35 years of triggering events, zero binding framework, because the enabling conditions are absent at that level. This is a significant revision of the AI governance timeline prediction upward and a clarification of WHY progress is structurally limited.

**What surprised me:** The COVID case is more damning than expected. COVID had a larger triggering event than any pharmaceutical case (by deaths, visibility, economic impact, and duration) and still failed to produce a binding international pandemic treaty in 6 years. This suggests the international/domestic gap is not just a matter of scale — it's structural. Even infinite triggering event magnitude cannot substitute for absent enabling conditions at the international level.

**What I expected but didn't find:** A historical case of INTERNATIONAL treaty governance driven by triggering events alone without Conditions 2, 3, 4, or security architecture. I could not identify one. The Ottawa Treaty requires reduced strategic utility (Condition 3 for major power opt-out to be tolerable). NPT requires security architecture (Condition 5). CWC requires three conditions. This absence is informative: the pattern appears robust across all available historical cases.

**KB connections:**
- PRIMARY: [[technology-governance-coordination-gaps-close-when-four-enabling-conditions-are-present-visible-triggering-events-commercial-network-effects-low-competitive-stakes-at-inception-or-physical-manifestation]] — this synthesis adds the governance-level dimension as a critical enrichment. The claim should distinguish: conditions sufficient for DOMESTIC governance vs. conditions required for INTERNATIONAL treaty governance.
- SECONDARY: [[governance-coordination-speed-scales-with-number-of-enabling-conditions-present-creating-predictable-timeline-variation-from-5-years-with-three-conditions-to-56-years-with-one-condition]] — the COVID case adds evidence that speed-scaling breaks down at the international level; pharmaceutical 1-condition = 56 years was domestic; international with 1 condition may not converge at all.
- SECONDARY: [[the-legislative-ceiling-on-military-ai-governance-is-conditional-not-absolute]] — the domestic/international split adds precision: the legislative ceiling for domestic AI regulation is eventually penetrable by triggering events; the ceiling for international binding governance on high-strategic-utility AI is structurally harder and requires additional conditions.
- BELIEF 1 connection: [[technology advances exponentially but coordination mechanisms evolve linearly creating a widening gap]] — the domestic/international split means the gap is widening at BOTH levels simultaneously but through different mechanisms. Closing the domestic level does not close the international level.

**Extraction hints:**

1. **HIGHEST PRIORITY — Standalone claim: domestic/international governance split.** Title: "Triggering events are sufficient to eventually produce domestic regulatory governance but cannot produce international treaty governance when Conditions 2, 3, and 4 are absent — demonstrated by COVID-19 producing domestic health governance reforms across major economies while failing to produce a binding international pandemic treaty 6 years after the largest triggering event in modern history." Confidence: likely. Domain: grand-strategy, mechanisms. This is the central new claim from this session. Evidence: COVAX equity failure, IHR amendments diluted, CA+ unsigned April 2026 vs. domestic pandemic preparedness legislation across US, EU, UK, Japan.

2. **MEDIUM PRIORITY — Additional evidence for enabling conditions framework:** Add COVID case and cybersecurity case as Additional Evidence to `technology-governance-coordination-gaps-close-when-four-enabling-conditions-are-present`. Both cases add to the existing framework. COVID: maximum Condition 1, zero others → international failure, domestic success. Cybersecurity: zero conditions, multiple triggering events → zero international governance after 35 years.

3. **MEDIUM PRIORITY — Enrichment for Ottawa Treaty claim:** Add strategic utility scope qualifier. The Ottawa model works for international governance only when major power opt-out is tolerable (reduced strategic utility). This makes the model explicitly inapplicable to frontier AI governance. Add as Additional Evidence to the legislative ceiling claim.

4. **LOWER PRIORITY — Financial governance as calibration case:** Basel III shows how Conditions 2 + 4 produce partial international governance even from a crisis starting point. Potentially useful as Additional Evidence for the enabling conditions framework.

5. **LOWER PRIORITY — Policy insight: constructed commercial network effects.** If AI safety certification could be made a prerequisite for international cloud provider relationships, insurance access, or financial services, Condition 2 could be artificially constructed. This is the most tractable AI governance pathway from today's analysis. Not enough for a standalone claim (one-step inference from financial governance case), but worth flagging as Extraction Hint for Theseus.

**Context:** Today's session completes the enabling conditions arc begun in Session 2026-04-01. The arc now covers: (1) four enabling conditions for governance coupling (general framework); (2) governance speed scaling with conditions; (3) governance level split (domestic vs. international requires different conditions); (4) Ottawa Treaty strategic utility prerequisite. This arc, combined with the legislative ceiling arc from Sessions 2026-03-27 through 2026-03-31, forms a coherent unified theory of why AI governance is structurally resistant: the international level requires conditions absent by design, and even domestic level progress cannot substitute for international coordination on the risks that matter most.

---

## Curator Notes

PRIMARY CONNECTION: [[technology-governance-coordination-gaps-close-when-four-enabling-conditions-are-present-visible-triggering-events-commercial-network-effects-low-competitive-stakes-at-inception-or-physical-manifestation]]

WHY ARCHIVED: The governance-level dimension is the most important missing piece in the enabling conditions framework. COVID proves that Condition 1 at maximum strength fails to produce international governance when the other conditions are absent. Cybersecurity provides 35-year confirmation of the zero-conditions prediction at the international level. Together, these cases reveal that the pharmaceutical model (triggering events → eventual governance) applies only to domestic regulation — not the international level where AI existential risk coordination must happen.

EXTRACTION HINT: Primary extraction action is a new standalone claim adding the domestic/international governance split to the framework. Secondary actions are Additional Evidence updates to the enabling conditions claim (COVID case, cybersecurity case) and the Ottawa Treaty enrichment to the legislative ceiling claim. Do NOT conflate all five claim candidates into one claim — each is a separate contribution with different evidence bases. Start with Claim Candidate 1 (domestic/international split) as it is the highest-value new claim.
