With aggressive monetary easing policies now being pursued in almost every major Developed Market economy, the world has clearly been pushed into a "currency war" and while this term was 'coined' by Brazil's Guido Mantega in 2010, the last 200 years or so are rife with different exchange rate regimes, all of which ended in currency crises shaping the next regime. The following chart shows these crises and regimes and given the current 'non-cooperative way forward', global preferences for a weaker currency will do nothing but generate more instability in FX markets as the fight against deflation flares everywhere.
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Chart: Goldman Sachs