Those would be part of the mechanisms of inevitability (under that hypothesis). Globalization is a phenomenon at the human societal level, they would be predicting human behaviors, it's not like rocks and rivers were going to precipitate it. It's not like those singular events "changed everything" either, it's an accumulation of decades of social sentiments, purchasing decisions, etc.

This whole subthread is from like an alternate timeline where the world actually found out or agreed that globalization was bad and stopped or slowed it somehow? Did the US meaningfully take back manufacturing or something?

If globalization is not inevitable, what's the alternative?