I think this is the bit most salient to the geopolitical situation today: >Adam Smith, however, had a more nuanced view. The “father of economics” felt that a

I think this is the bit most salient to the geopolitical situation today: >Adam Smith, however, had a more nuanced view. The “father of economics” felt that a country with an absolute monarchy, such as France, did not have the requisite political virtue for free trade. He believed that its monarchical system was controlled by monopolizing merchants who would never let it trade freely. For French monarchy, substitute modern Chinese or Russian autocracy. If you have two mutually trading free democracies the interests of the people will always be best served by peaceful negotiation, so that is what they will demand of the leaders they elect. With autocracies what's best for the people isn't the primary concern, rather it's what's in the best interests of the autocrat that drives policy. As an aside I think it's pretty evident that Putin did not enter into the invasion of Ukraine with the intention to end up in a catastrophic trade war with the West, and bogged down in an un-winable quagmire in Ukraine. He was expecting a quick victory and lots of glory, presenting the west with a fait accompli as he did with Crimea. Nevertheless he was doing it to serve his own goals as an autocrat rather than because it was genuinely in any way in the interests of ordinary Russians. Nevertheless there's always the possibility of severe miscalculation. However in a democracy a plurality of the population has to miscalculate, while in an autocracy it only takes on person to get it wrong and you have a disaster.