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Comment by wahern | Hacker News Reader

Decoupling our economies, if successful (a big if), is a recipe for war.

Unfortunately, the last few remaining adults interested in and capable of doing the hard work of political and economic diplomacy, and domestic industrial policy left in 2016. Most had retired already as they were old enough to have lived through either WWII or the Korean War and thus knew what the stakes were. Taking their ball and going home was never an option for them no matter how much the opponent cheated--the task at hand was constant engagement, which however difficult and seemingly pointless was preferable to the alternative.

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I don’t know. Our economy was almost completely decoupled from the Soviet Union and that never turned into a shooting war. What’s different this time that is going to overcome MAD and allow for a conventional war?

The cold war was a massive cost to the economies of both the Soviets and the west; and a also had a series of proxy wars (Korea, Vietnam etc.) that cost millions of people their lives. Plus we were dangerously close to tipping into a full on nuclear confrontation a multiple points.

A country avoids nuclear exchanges because retaliation will also devastate it. An integrated economy isn’t going be any more of a deterrent in this respect. If a country is willing to deal with nuclear devastation they are certainly willing to deal with economically damaging themselves.

As far as proxy wars go is trade going to stop those? History has examples of proxy wars fought between countries that engaged in trade.

Even at its peak, USSR economy was only almost as big as the US (half the size, irrc). China is almost certainly going to surpass the US in term of total economy.

China is at or near its 21st century peak (getting old before it gets rich), and the US has a massive number of strong friends and allies, including a European Union increasingly wary of China.

It's a different Cold War from the USSR, but democracy may still again prevail against a totalitarianism.

The EU is also increasingly wary of the US.

The EU was always wary of the US. But when it comes to picking between China and the US, there’s no chance they pick China without some kind of massive currently unpredicted Chinese reforms.

Chinese GDP growth has slowed dramatically, and it’s GDP per capita is still at the level of Mexico. It’s population is projected to decline dramatically, and it has a very unfavorable age distribution.

It probably won’t get more than some small multiple larger than the US economy and it may never approach the US in GDP per capita.

My point is that the the imbalance is unlikely to get large enough that they US keep fielding a credible nuclear threat.

So again what has changed that makes conventional war between nuclear powers likely or possible.

If you become dependent on another country to produce some good, then you become vulnerable to them withdrawing that same good. Globalisation is arguably bad security. It makes sense for democracies to favour trade with other democracies, which they're less likely to have conflicts with.

That dependency goes both ways: it’s an interdependency. I suggest you read about the European Coal and Steel Community after WW2.

The Russians want to sell Europe their gas despite being somewhat politically opposed: that money props up a huge chunk of their economy. The oil and gas oligarchs would not be happy with Putin if he stopped exports.

I suggest you read about the European Coal and Steel Community after WW2.

Post-war European democracies and CCP China are apples to oranges. Not only in the freedom and democracy ratings sense. The EU has still to makes leaps in terms of becoming a union, and they're geographically next to each other, and culturally close, to a level the US and China will never be.

The theory is trade is an interdependency that puts the brakes on war regardless of cultural differences. Europe was almost constantly warring before the formation of the Common Market. China needs the trade as much as we do

It's the other way around: it's because diplomacy and lack of war that economic interdependency can be built.

China needs to trade far more than we do. That's why there will be no war even if some decoupling happens. China can't afford it, at many levels, including the US being the oceanic route police.

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