Once institutions, especially powerful ones like NATO, urge businesses and economic agents to prepare for war, they are signaling a shift in the geopolitical and economic landscape that increases the likelihood of conflict. The mobilization of economic forces is a double-edged sword: while it may be intended to bolster resilience and deter aggression, it also makes war increasingly difficult to avoid. As economic forces and preparations for conflict are set in motion, they create a momentum that increases the costs of demobilization and makes peace harder to maintain, leading to a self-fulfilling prophecy of war.
> ... intended to bolster resilience and deter aggression, it also makes war increasingly difficult to avoid. As economic forces and preparations for conflict are set in motion, they create a momentum that increases the costs of demobilization and makes peace harder to maintain, leading to a self-fulfilling prophecy of war.
Really can't follow you there. Is this your very personal opinion or are there political science/ economic sources to back this up?
War is primarily a means of politics as Clausewitz stated in 'On War'.
Economics cannot deter aggression if it is politically so desired.
Never has.
What it can do, and what it did in any war, even the Cold War is that short of any one party purely overwhelming another by sheer force, the party who can sustain economic troubles and losses longer wins.
And this is what this is about.
Economic divestment does not in any way, shape or form become a "self-fulfilling prophecy" for war.
But if it came to war, one side is gonna run out of money and production capacity first.
We can control what we do, but not what other parties do. Anyone who has been following along is well aware that the other side has already been doing. We can choose to be prepared, or to be unprepared. We are watching the consequences of being unprepared play out on social media, in politics, and economically. In reality, there is no choice and we've already been far, far too willing to defer preparation to "avoid escalation", and yet the escalation has occurred all the same. The hesitancy has been interpreted as validation that we will not respond to escalation. This is history rhyming.
Putin will never go peacefully, you can only contain until he moves on. He is chasing status and legacy, against a light cone of success that is beyond his grasp due to age, health, and the condition of the Russian economy.
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