> if there's war, but yet the war happened anyway. That doesen't mean that 10 additional wars wouldn't have happened otherwise. It's a bit like saying that saf

> if there's war, but yet the war happened anyway. That doesen't mean that 10 additional wars wouldn't have happened otherwise. It's a bit like saying that safety standards don't matter because people still die in car crashes. Of course, you're right in a way. For the system to work you have to assume that states are governed by rational actors and that their citizens prefer having access to iPhones and other foreign goods (and not destroying their economy in general) over "fighting nazis/homosexuals/{insert idiotic thing}"... Russia's current account surplus finally became negative in the last few months so if that continues and their currency continues crashing, hopefully living standards for ordinary Russians will start decreasing at a faster pace and maybe they'll start thinking about regime change. Then again 2x more deaths during a single years than throughout the entire 10 year long war in Afghanistan didn't bother them to much so who knows...