With its war on Ukraine, Russia has provided further evidence that commercial ties alone are not enough to prevent war. But, far from implying that the world should abandon engagement, the war highlights the need for deeper political and social bonds.
WASHINGTON, DC/NEW HAVEN – In the wake of the Cold War, as globalization gathered speed, Thomas Friedman observed that no two countries with a McDonald’s franchise had ever gone to war with each other. This led him to what he called the Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention: when a country reaches a certain level of economic development – one where the middle class is big enough to support a McDonald’s – its people lose interest in fighting wars. The key to peace, the logic went, may well lie in economic development and interconnectedness.
WASHINGTON, DC/NEW HAVEN – In the wake of the Cold War, as globalization gathered speed, Thomas Friedman observed that no two countries with a McDonald’s franchise had ever gone to war with each other. This led him to what he called the Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention: when a country reaches a certain level of economic development – one where the middle class is big enough to support a McDonald’s – its people lose interest in fighting wars. The key to peace, the logic went, may well lie in economic development and interconnectedness.