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My main concern is that de-globalizing trade will remove a large barrier for real kinetic war. Bombing your economic partner is generally a dumb move, and that

My main concern is that de-globalizing trade will remove a large barrier for real kinetic war. Bombing your economic partner is generally a dumb move, and that has been pretty nice for humanity in the last ~50 years.

toomuchtodo 2y ago
This is a fair take, but also consider that Germany attempted to use purchasing fossil gas from Russia to prevent aggression, and it did not.
- consumer451 2y ago
  That's an extremely good point, which hits really close to home. I wonder if Putin would have still invaded Ukraine, knowing the extent of sanctions that would hit them. He might have been lulled into thinking that the EU would not care, given the existence of people like Gerhard Schröder and his ilk. edit: I am not sure that the reason for the Russian-German energy alliance was an attempt at pacification. It seems more likely to me that it was simply in the economic interest of Germany. Countries which are East of Germany certainly complained about it, for strategic reasons.
  - toomuchtodo 2y ago
    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/02/germany-dependence-russian-energy-gas-oil-nord-stream https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/02/germany-depend... > The relationship would benefit both sides: Germany would supply the machines and high-quality industrial goods; Russia would provide the raw material to fuel German industry. High-pressure pipelines and their supporting infrastructure hold the potential to bind countries together, since they require trust, cooperation and mutual dependence. But this was not just a commercial deal, as the presence at the hotel of the German economic minister Karl Schiller showed. For the advocates of Ostpolitik – the new “eastern policy” of rapprochement towards the Soviet Union and its allies including East Germany, launched the previous year under chancellor Willy Brandt – this was a moment of supreme political consequence. Schiller, an economist by training, was to describe it as part of an effort at “political and human normalisation with our Eastern neighbours”.
  - Izkata 2y ago
    Before WWI there was a similar belief in Europe, that the growing economic interdependence would prevent wars from breaking out. Instead once there was a spark, those relationships kept pulling more and more countries into the conflict and turned it into the "Great War".
    - dcrazy 2y ago
      Were they economic interdependencies or high-level political alliances? The E.U. is clearly an example of the economic interdependency theory. It evolved in post-WW2 Europe from the European Coal and Steel Community. Mineral richness is why the Saarland was given to France after WW2. The idea is that economic integration will lead to political integration from the ground up. My understanding of the pre-WW1 alliances is that they were deals made between a lot of people with “Habsburg” in their names.
      - wqaatwt 2y ago
        The Habsburg dynasty technically became extinct in 1780. After that they were the house of Habsburg-Lorraine and they didn’t have much direct influence outside of Austria-Hungary. Dynastic politics were by and large dead in the 1800s with few exceptions (but generally kings/queens were just pawns in the hand of the politicians unlike in the preceding centuries).
      - rat87 2y ago
        I disagree the EU is peaceful because of democratic peace theory and because of the political union not because of trade. If it was just economic and some of those countries were authoritarian I could easily border conflicts turning into wars
        oceanplexian 2y ago
        It really hasn’t been particularly peaceful. The last dictatorship was in the 1970s? The last World War the 40s? The US might have had a civil war but it went in and came out the other side with the same borders, government, and constitution. Still going strong since the 18th century.
  - rat87 2y ago
    German Ostpolitik (eastern politics) goes back before independent Russia back to the 1960s attempt to cooperate and have peace with Eastern Germany and the Soviet Union. And peace with Russia (maybe even its transformation into a regular democraric state) was the primary stated motivator in recent years. Economics and even bribes helpwd grease the wheels but peace is what formed the national strategy in the first place and what entrenched it kraut made some intresting videos on this topic recently. both the start of ostpolitik and their failure in recent hears compared with Polish politics towards Russia https://youtu.be/XjvrbnEMNVk?feature=shared https://youtu.be/XjvrbnEMNVk?feature=shared https://youtu.be/bWJeNVzqBZI?feature=shared https://youtu.be/bWJeNVzqBZI?feature=shared
  - ashoeafoot 2y ago
    Its prussian restorationism, it oozes out of berlin since the reunification and with it and its disciples (AFD) comes that idea that you can ignore the small countries if you are a big country. There are people not falling for it, but real-imperialists like Steinmeier, Schröder or Gauland are ready to send other smaller nations to the slaughter for their own benefits .
rapnie 2y ago
> pretty nice for humanity in the last ~50 years. Case in point, the EU with its internal markets.
CapricornNoble 2y ago
People thought that international trade would prevent war before WW1[1]. The concept doesn't really account for how political leaders often care about things other than money, business, or the material welfare of their plebs. [1] https://bigthink.com/the-past/world-war-one-illusion/ https://bigthink.com/the-past/world-war-one-illusion/
banannaise 2y ago
To quote the philosopher Tankian: "Why don't presidents fight the war? Why do they always send the poor?" Those in power right now have no personal disincentive to real kinetic war. It doesn't affect them personally, or so they think up until the moment it does.
- alfiedotwtf 2y ago
  Speaking of the great Tankian, “… breaking into Fort Knox“ Interesting that Trump, Elon, and DOGE haven’t mentioned Fort Knox yet
  - mindslight 2y ago
    They've got to finish their one-for-you-two-for-me "audit". But don't worry I'm sure we'll be hearing any day now how JOEBIDEN was simultaneously sleepy and also a mastermind that stole all the gold, and how they now need to purchase a bunch of shitcoins to replace it.
  - aaronbrethorst 2y ago
    Sure they did, like a month ago. https://abcnews.go.com/amp/Politics/trump-musk-raise-questions-nations-gold-fort-knox/story?id=119219700 https://abcnews.go.com/amp/Politics/trump-musk-raise-questio...
- rat87 2y ago
  I wouldn't put it past Teddy Roosevelt. When he was undersecretary of the navy that helped start the Spanish American war he resigned (despite his superiors asking him not to) to fight in the war. He also asked to fight in WW1 despite being old. For all his positive attributes former senator McCain was known as a hawk. There have always been men who after fighting come away with a firm belief in military power. If you made service a requirement you wouldn't necessarily get fewer hawks just ones you can't criticize for not participating in war themseu
pizzly 2y ago
Its definitely de-globalizing USA's trade but I don't think it will de-globalize the rest of the world's trade. One method for countries to combat US's tariffs is to reduce trade barriers between themselves thus reducing the barriers to sell their goods to other countries instead of US. EU and China just had an initial conversation regarding just this.
- oceanplexian 2y ago
  I don’t see that happening since the US has historically been the least protectionist of nations. The EU loves protectionism. The single market is totally dysfunctional with a recent study saying it was equivalent to a 45% tariff between member states for manufacturing, a 110% for services. If this is the cohort you expect to save the world economy with free trade I certainly wouldn’t be betting real money on it.
  - defrost 2y ago
    Historically, the United States of America pursued a protectionist policy from the beginning of the 19th century until the middle of the 20th century. Between 1861 and 1933, they had one of the highest average tariff rates on manufactured imports in the world. After 1942, the U.S. began to promote worldwide free trade. Within the EU single market, there are no tariffs or customs duties between member states for manufactured goods, services, capital, and people, fostering free movement and trade. The report(?) you a paraphrasing badly talked about within Europe (not the EU) and referred to figures between, say, Germany and Russia. \? At a guess (thanks for not citing the report) you meant the IMF Regional Economic Outlook report titled “Europe: A Recovery Short of Europe’s Full Potential” (October 2024) ?
    - csdreamer7 2y ago
      > Between 1861 and 1933, they had one of the highest average tariff rates on manufactured imports in the world. After 1942, the U.S. began to promote worldwide free trade. The US did this because of the free trade treaties between west European states after WW2. This eventually led to the EU. The US, not wanting to be isolated, pushed for their own treaties.
rat87 2y ago
I think it won't change much because frankly the peace trade theory has not worked out very well. I think it was first formulated around WW1 and didn't stop it or WW2. Most modern wars don't make financial sense when accounting for everything but they are still fought. Often over stupid reasons. For example Russia invaded Ukraine despite trade partnership with Ukraine and EU. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_peace_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_peace_theory has a better run
- aleph_minus_one 2y ago
  > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_peace_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_peace_theory has a better run I don't think so: for example the Weimar Republic is a counterexample. Or a modern example is the current war between Ukraine and Russia (both are democracies even though in Russia some particular president and party has a lot of influence). Both of these examples show that even in a democratic country under specific circumstances it can happen that a particular group or party can gain lots of power. -- If you want to see another interesting "peace theory", consider the madman theory: > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madman_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madman_theory It basically says that if a country has access to atomic weapons, and the president or person in power radiates the image that he is sufficiently "mad" that in case of an aggression against the country they are willing to use them and escalate the conflict into a global nuclear holocaust, other stakeholders will strongly attempt not to upset this country, i.e. seek more peaceful and diplomatic solutions with this country. This theory explains well why the USA have not yet invaded North Korea and are hesitant to invade Iran.
  - rat87 2y ago
    I wouldn't consider Putins Russia a democracy especially in 2014 after the Medvedev shuffle. Putins dislike and lack of understanding of democracy and how it lead Ukraine in a different path towards the EU was probably a major factor in his decision to invade
abstractanimal 2y ago
This is a pretty old idea that goes back to debates over David Ricardo's theory of comparative advantage in the early 1800s. > “Free trade is God’s diplomacy. There is no other certain way of uniting people in the bonds of peace than by the bonds of interest.” - Richard Cobden
ashoeafoot 2y ago
It did not prevent WW1.
mikrotikker 2y ago
The deglobalization is happening anyway if you believe Peter Ziehan. Biden implemented policies to start the deglobalization despite trumpers claiming he was a globalist.

toomuchtodo 2y ago

This is a fair take, but also consider that Germany attempted to use purchasing fossil gas from Russia to prevent aggression, and it did not.

consumer451 2y ago
That's an extremely good point, which hits really close to home. I wonder if Putin would have still invaded Ukraine, knowing the extent of sanctions that would hit them. He might have been lulled into thinking that the EU would not care, given the existence of people like Gerhard Schröder and his ilk. edit: I am not sure that the reason for the Russian-German energy alliance was an attempt at pacification. It seems more likely to me that it was simply in the economic interest of Germany. Countries which are East of Germany certainly complained about it, for strategic reasons.
- toomuchtodo 2y ago
  https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/02/germany-dependence-russian-energy-gas-oil-nord-stream https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/02/germany-depend... > The relationship would benefit both sides: Germany would supply the machines and high-quality industrial goods; Russia would provide the raw material to fuel German industry. High-pressure pipelines and their supporting infrastructure hold the potential to bind countries together, since they require trust, cooperation and mutual dependence. But this was not just a commercial deal, as the presence at the hotel of the German economic minister Karl Schiller showed. For the advocates of Ostpolitik – the new “eastern policy” of rapprochement towards the Soviet Union and its allies including East Germany, launched the previous year under chancellor Willy Brandt – this was a moment of supreme political consequence. Schiller, an economist by training, was to describe it as part of an effort at “political and human normalisation with our Eastern neighbours”.
- Izkata 2y ago
  Before WWI there was a similar belief in Europe, that the growing economic interdependence would prevent wars from breaking out. Instead once there was a spark, those relationships kept pulling more and more countries into the conflict and turned it into the "Great War".
  - dcrazy 2y ago
    Were they economic interdependencies or high-level political alliances? The E.U. is clearly an example of the economic interdependency theory. It evolved in post-WW2 Europe from the European Coal and Steel Community. Mineral richness is why the Saarland was given to France after WW2. The idea is that economic integration will lead to political integration from the ground up. My understanding of the pre-WW1 alliances is that they were deals made between a lot of people with “Habsburg” in their names.
    - wqaatwt 2y ago
      The Habsburg dynasty technically became extinct in 1780. After that they were the house of Habsburg-Lorraine and they didn’t have much direct influence outside of Austria-Hungary. Dynastic politics were by and large dead in the 1800s with few exceptions (but generally kings/queens were just pawns in the hand of the politicians unlike in the preceding centuries).
    - rat87 2y ago
      I disagree the EU is peaceful because of democratic peace theory and because of the political union not because of trade. If it was just economic and some of those countries were authoritarian I could easily border conflicts turning into wars
      - oceanplexian 2y ago
        It really hasn’t been particularly peaceful. The last dictatorship was in the 1970s? The last World War the 40s? The US might have had a civil war but it went in and came out the other side with the same borders, government, and constitution. Still going strong since the 18th century.
- rat87 2y ago
  German Ostpolitik (eastern politics) goes back before independent Russia back to the 1960s attempt to cooperate and have peace with Eastern Germany and the Soviet Union. And peace with Russia (maybe even its transformation into a regular democraric state) was the primary stated motivator in recent years. Economics and even bribes helpwd grease the wheels but peace is what formed the national strategy in the first place and what entrenched it kraut made some intresting videos on this topic recently. both the start of ostpolitik and their failure in recent hears compared with Polish politics towards Russia https://youtu.be/XjvrbnEMNVk?feature=shared https://youtu.be/XjvrbnEMNVk?feature=shared https://youtu.be/bWJeNVzqBZI?feature=shared https://youtu.be/bWJeNVzqBZI?feature=shared
- ashoeafoot 2y ago
  Its prussian restorationism, it oozes out of berlin since the reunification and with it and its disciples (AFD) comes that idea that you can ignore the small countries if you are a big country. There are people not falling for it, but real-imperialists like Steinmeier, Schröder or Gauland are ready to send other smaller nations to the slaughter for their own benefits .

rapnie 2y ago

> pretty nice for humanity in the last ~50 years. Case in point, the EU with its internal markets.

CapricornNoble 2y ago

People thought that international trade would prevent war before WW1[1]. The concept doesn't really account for how political leaders often care about things other than money, business, or the material welfare of their plebs. [1] https://bigthink.com/the-past/world-war-one-illusion/ https://bigthink.com/the-past/world-war-one-illusion/

banannaise 2y ago

To quote the philosopher Tankian: "Why don't presidents fight the war? Why do they always send the poor?" Those in power right now have no personal disincentive to real kinetic war. It doesn't affect them personally, or so they think up until the moment it does.

alfiedotwtf 2y ago
Speaking of the great Tankian, “… breaking into Fort Knox“ Interesting that Trump, Elon, and DOGE haven’t mentioned Fort Knox yet
- mindslight 2y ago
  They've got to finish their one-for-you-two-for-me "audit". But don't worry I'm sure we'll be hearing any day now how JOEBIDEN was simultaneously sleepy and also a mastermind that stole all the gold, and how they now need to purchase a bunch of shitcoins to replace it.
- aaronbrethorst 2y ago
  Sure they did, like a month ago. https://abcnews.go.com/amp/Politics/trump-musk-raise-questions-nations-gold-fort-knox/story?id=119219700 https://abcnews.go.com/amp/Politics/trump-musk-raise-questio...
rat87 2y ago
I wouldn't put it past Teddy Roosevelt. When he was undersecretary of the navy that helped start the Spanish American war he resigned (despite his superiors asking him not to) to fight in the war. He also asked to fight in WW1 despite being old. For all his positive attributes former senator McCain was known as a hawk. There have always been men who after fighting come away with a firm belief in military power. If you made service a requirement you wouldn't necessarily get fewer hawks just ones you can't criticize for not participating in war themseu

pizzly 2y ago

Its definitely de-globalizing USA's trade but I don't think it will de-globalize the rest of the world's trade. One method for countries to combat US's tariffs is to reduce trade barriers between themselves thus reducing the barriers to sell their goods to other countries instead of US. EU and China just had an initial conversation regarding just this.

oceanplexian 2y ago
I don’t see that happening since the US has historically been the least protectionist of nations. The EU loves protectionism. The single market is totally dysfunctional with a recent study saying it was equivalent to a 45% tariff between member states for manufacturing, a 110% for services. If this is the cohort you expect to save the world economy with free trade I certainly wouldn’t be betting real money on it.
- defrost 2y ago
  Historically, the United States of America pursued a protectionist policy from the beginning of the 19th century until the middle of the 20th century. Between 1861 and 1933, they had one of the highest average tariff rates on manufactured imports in the world. After 1942, the U.S. began to promote worldwide free trade. Within the EU single market, there are no tariffs or customs duties between member states for manufactured goods, services, capital, and people, fostering free movement and trade. The report(?) you a paraphrasing badly talked about within Europe (not the EU) and referred to figures between, say, Germany and Russia. \? At a guess (thanks for not citing the report) you meant the IMF Regional Economic Outlook report titled “Europe: A Recovery Short of Europe’s Full Potential” (October 2024) ?
  - csdreamer7 2y ago
    > Between 1861 and 1933, they had one of the highest average tariff rates on manufactured imports in the world. After 1942, the U.S. began to promote worldwide free trade. The US did this because of the free trade treaties between west European states after WW2. This eventually led to the EU. The US, not wanting to be isolated, pushed for their own treaties.

rat87 2y ago

I think it won't change much because frankly the peace trade theory has not worked out very well. I think it was first formulated around WW1 and didn't stop it or WW2. Most modern wars don't make financial sense when accounting for everything but they are still fought. Often over stupid reasons. For example Russia invaded Ukraine despite trade partnership with Ukraine and EU. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_peace_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_peace_theory has a better run

aleph_minus_one 2y ago
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_peace_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_peace_theory has a better run I don't think so: for example the Weimar Republic is a counterexample. Or a modern example is the current war between Ukraine and Russia (both are democracies even though in Russia some particular president and party has a lot of influence). Both of these examples show that even in a democratic country under specific circumstances it can happen that a particular group or party can gain lots of power. -- If you want to see another interesting "peace theory", consider the madman theory: > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madman_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madman_theory It basically says that if a country has access to atomic weapons, and the president or person in power radiates the image that he is sufficiently "mad" that in case of an aggression against the country they are willing to use them and escalate the conflict into a global nuclear holocaust, other stakeholders will strongly attempt not to upset this country, i.e. seek more peaceful and diplomatic solutions with this country. This theory explains well why the USA have not yet invaded North Korea and are hesitant to invade Iran.
- rat87 2y ago
  I wouldn't consider Putins Russia a democracy especially in 2014 after the Medvedev shuffle. Putins dislike and lack of understanding of democracy and how it lead Ukraine in a different path towards the EU was probably a major factor in his decision to invade

abstractanimal 2y ago

This is a pretty old idea that goes back to debates over David Ricardo's theory of comparative advantage in the early 1800s. > “Free trade is God’s diplomacy. There is no other certain way of uniting people in the bonds of peace than by the bonds of interest.” - Richard Cobden

ashoeafoot 2y ago

It did not prevent WW1.

mikrotikker 2y ago

The deglobalization is happening anyway if you believe Peter Ziehan. Biden implemented policies to start the deglobalization despite trumpers claiming he was a globalist.