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.
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.
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) ?
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.
I would have thought Japan and China hated each other more than they hated Trump but it seems otherwise.
I believe they still hate each other much more than Trump, but under the given circumstances even archenemies can reach temporary (likely unstable) pragmatic agreements as long as these agreements are clearly advantageous to all of the involved archenemies involved.
I would advise you to look the current US foreign trade policy in this instance. Compared to 104% tariffs, EU policy looks positively welcoming.
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.
> 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”.
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.
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).
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.
This is a bad take on the cause of alliances. large wartime coalitions had been a thing since the consolidation of power into monarchies in Europe: the 7-year war had involved all of Europe's significant actors, as did the napoleonic wars, the war for the spanish succession, the 30-year war, etc. This was much earlier than the development of cross-border trade.
In an imperialist era, diplomacy was the way to coordinate European nations' colonial efforts without repeating that kind of conflict. It was only temporary, though, since expansionist policies can't last forever peacefully.
The reason WW1 felt so different from previous wars was technological development. That aspect was already present in earlier wars, WW1 was just the first major European conflict in a long time.
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/bWJeNVzqBZI?feature=shared
"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.
Interesting that Trump, Elon, and DOGE haven’t mentioned Fort Knox yet
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
Case in point, the EU with its internal markets.
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 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.
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If you want to see another interesting "peace theory", consider the 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.
> “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