Economic Ties Among Nations Spur Peace. Or Do They?

There are good reasons for the European Union to believe that economic ties would bind potential combatants more closely together, said Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations. The proof was the European Union itself. The organization’s roots go back to the creation after World War II of the European Coal and Steel Community, a pact among six nations meant to avert conflict by pooling control of these two essential commodities.

“The idea was that if you knit together the French and German economies, they wouldn’t be able to go to war,” Mr. Haass said. The aim was to prevent World War III.

Scholars have attempted to prove that the theory worked in the real world — studying tens of thousands of trade relations and military conflicts over several decades — and have come to different conclusions.

In terms of the current crisis, Mr. Haass argued, in some ways the economic benefits were not mutual enough. “The Germans needed Russian gas much more than Russia needs exports, because they can make up for lost revenue with higher prices,” he said.

“That’s where Europe handled the relationship all wrong,” Mr. Haass added. “The leverage wasn’t reciprocal.”

Despite its huge land mass, nuclear arsenal and energy exports, Russia is otherwise relatively insulated from the global economy, accounting for 1.7 percent of global output. And since Russia’s invasion of Crimea in 2014, Mr. Putin has moved to isolate the economy even more to protect against retaliation.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/04/business/economy/ukraine-russia-global-economy.html