Exactly! I have always thought it was insane from a national security perspective to allow functionally all of key manufacturing capabilities (e.g., microprocessors) to go offshore. Nevermind the risks of inserted backdoors, etc, just the external sources of failure rapidly become too great.
Yes, this would require subsidies & regulations, and be on a quarter-to-quarter and in most fiscal years "inefficient" use of capital, open to accusations of "waste", "boondoggle", "featherbedding", etc.. Yet, we're happy to pay firemen to polish their trucks while they wait for a fire to happen, or soldiers to 'squander' ammunition shooting at paper targets when there is no war.
Somebody needs to be thinking and acting on more than just shareholder value for the current quarter if we are to remain a nation.
Its pretty clear at this point that the shareholder value revolution has been a disaster for many people and the planet.
Today, a few generations of people are unfamiliar with the idea that a corporation could act in ways that are consistent with the good of the community, or optimize for long-term growth, value & sustainability.
> I have always thought it was insane from a national security perspective to allow functionally all of key manufacturing capabilities (e.g., microprocessors) to go offshore.
I am not sure, a completely dependent world may make us safer as wars will very hard to execute.
That's true so long as everyone is dependent on each other. If, everyone is dependent on one country, that doesn't hold
China has a near monopoly on a lot of production. Countries that depend on them certainly won't go to war with them, but that doesn't hinder China from starting a war with those countries, and even gives them an advantage. And it doesn't stop dependent countries from warring with each other and that could even be beneficial to China.
N.B. I use China as an example only. Replace China with any country that might have a near monopoly on production of some kind. The point I'm trying to make isn't "ahhh China scary", it's that interconnectedness may only prevent war if it's actually interconnected, and not a monopoly.
Trade goes both ways. The seller of goods is just as dependent on the exchange as the buyer. Nobody stays in business going to war with their customers. And there are truly very few products that cannot be sourced from alternates given a little time and money.
I think the "global interdependence reduces war" hypothesis is pretty strong.
Money is fake in a way that physical products aren't. So the parties have very unequal bargaining positions, the one with the "real" stuff (products) can walk away much more easily than the one with the "fake" stuff (money).
And if the seller is a monopoly on a critical good while the buyer is a tiny fraction of their business, the relationship is asymmetrical and the seller won't suffer nearly as much from a war.
You might be right over the long term, we don't know yet. Related observations have been made - people used to talk about how countries with MacDonald's franchises never went to war.
But it does open up avenues for conflict less intense than invasion. The term 'weaponized interdependence' has recently been coined for this. An exploration:
Interesting. The McDonald's thing is sort of like saying that no two Soviet Socialist Republics have ever gone to war. It just means they aren't really sovereign independent countries acting on their own behalf.
Exactly. Once the occupying force was removed from those countries the underlying ethnic conflict resumed openly. Similar things will happen elsewhere as US military power wanes.
The saying was at least trying to claim something different. The claim was, more or less, that democracy/capitalism (people making this claim didn't distinguish them, mostly) brings peace through freedom and prosperity.
It was more a claim about Western European countries, which, propaganda aside, were not puppet-states of the US.
Cold-war era US puppet-states were different, and at the time mostly didn't tend to have Macdonald's, at least outside of a capitol. We were busy subverting their democracies, and civil unrest doesn't go well with Big Macs.
Yes, and that claim is wrong. Germany has had 50,000 US troops stationed in it for 75 years and the most rebellious thing they've done is politely ask for their gold back (US said no). No need to subvert a country you already have firm control over.
Interdependence, even to the point that war is utterly ruinous with no upside, is no guarantee war wont happen, don't make the mistake most people in Europe did before WWI
Wow, published in 1909. Amazing how old (and wrong) this "economic mutually assured destruction" argument is.
I think it's popular today as a distraction from the fact that the American Empire is really held together by military occupations in Europe, Asia, the Middle East, Latin America etc. and not economic ties. Obviously "we just want to make you rich" is much nicer sounding than "we will bomb you if you resist US hegemony".
There are a lot of unsettling parallels between the era before WW I and today:
A major rising power that feels it is being denied its "rightful place" in the world order by the existing power brokers (Germany vs the UK/ China vs the USA) lead by a hardline leader that isn't interested in compromise (Kaiser Wilhelm II/Xi Jinping)
A series of interlocking mutual defensive pacts that will automatically draw nations into war (The alliance of the UK, France and Russia vs Germany and the Austria-Hungary Empire/NATO vs China and Russia)
Regional fighting that is close to leading to direct confrontation between said power blocks (The Balkans/Turkey and Syria)
Rising Globalism and trade interdependance, along with rising nationalistic rhetoric and jingoism, and intense competition for influence in 3rd party states (The scramble for africa/Africa and south east asia and former CIS states).
The major powers slept walked into a horrible war because the rising tensions made it inevitable, and nobody took heroic steps to stop it, sadly it looks like it might be happening again.
Nobody wanted a ruinous war, and most people thought that there was no way a war could really occur or at the very least be sustained due to the need for trade. (Germany at the start of WWI was critically short on stuff like gasoline, fertilizer and the raw materials for gunpowder)
Many interesting points, but the "mutual defensive pacts that will automatically draw nations into war" part seems to not apply today.
For NATO, the key part is Article 5 that specifies "armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all", and is intentionally drafted so as to not apply to "Cold war turning hot" in Asia (e.g. the Korean war or Vietnam war or Afghanistan or Iraq) and to any "non-core territories" e.g. French or British overseas territories or pacific islands like Guam. Heck, a literal repeat of Pearl Harbor and invasion of Hawaii would not trigger Article 5 (though NATO could and would likely take action despite not being required to do so) - the NATO treaty is explicitly designed to not draw nations automatically into war unless USSR or someone else starts WW3 in Europe or attacks mainland USA. It's hard to imagine any Chinese actions regarding their ambitions (e.g. South China Sea, Taiwan, Hong Kong) that could trigger the NATO Article 5 which would automatically draw nations into war, anything in Asia would give each nation a choice whether to get involved and if so, how much.
I'm not informed about the Russia-China treaties much, but IMHO they also don't have any strong mutual defence pacts, they have some limited military cooperation and sharing but that's it; they had a mutual defence pact in 1950s but that's long gone now. For example, there's the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_Sino-Russian_Treaty_of_Fr... where the strongest relevant obligation in Article 9 would require each party, if it's attacked, to.... immediately contact the other and consult about the situation; it does not include any agreement or obligation to actually do anything about it.
> I am not sure, a completely dependent world may make us safer as wars will very hard to execute.
But "safer" doesn't necessarily mean "no wars." It's rare, but sometimes wars are just (e.g. ones against those who commit crimes against humanity). A world so economically interdependent that war is truly unthinkable is one where even peaceful coercion like sanctions are too costly to pursue. I don't want economics to enslave morality.
It is insane to think that every country must have their fully end to end supply chains. Italy doesn't need to manufacture microprocessors despite the backdoors that Intel tries to introduce.
I didn't say fully end-to-end supply chains, and certainly not for every country, but major powers should at least maintain sources for critical components/elements within their own borders or those of close longstanding allies.
Yes, this would require subsidies & regulations, and be on a quarter-to-quarter and in most fiscal years "inefficient" use of capital, open to accusations of "waste", "boondoggle", "featherbedding", etc.. Yet, we're happy to pay firemen to polish their trucks while they wait for a fire to happen, or soldiers to 'squander' ammunition shooting at paper targets when there is no war.
Somebody needs to be thinking and acting on more than just shareholder value for the current quarter if we are to remain a nation.