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You might have missed the cold war in your summary. Mass nuclear anxiety really characterized that era, with a number of near misses that could have ended in gl
by h0l0cube 2y ago
You might have missed the cold war in your summary. Mass nuclear anxiety really characterized that era, with a number of near misses that could have ended in global annihilation (and that’s no exaggeration).
IMO, the Atoms for Peace propaganda undersells how successful globalization has been at keeping nations from destroying each other by creating codependence on complex supply chains. The new shift to protectionism may see an end to that
- int_19h 2y agoThe supply chain argument was also made wrt European countries just before WW1. It wasn't even wrong - economically, it was as devastating as predicted for everyone involved, with no real winners - but that didn't preclude the war.
- h0l0cube 2y agoThe scale of globalization post-WW2 puts it on a whole other level. The complexity of supply chains now are such that any country would grind to a halt without imports. The exception here, to some degree, is China, but so far they've been more interested in soft power over military, and that strategy has served them well. Though it seems the US are gearing up for a fight with a fully domestic manufacturing capability and natural resource pools of its own. It would require consistent protectionist policy over multiple administrations to pull something like that off, so it remains to be seen if that's truly possible.