How common are wars between major powers of roughly the G20 level? The Falklands War is the only one in almost 80 years by my estimation. That is a drastic and notable decrease compared to the preceding centuries.
Globalization has skyrocketed in the last 100 years. Also they were making a prediction about the future while I am making an observation of modern history. You're comparing speculation versus analysis.
I don't think that analysis is quite convincing. Before WW1, you also had economics calculations thrown around. The economic cost of a conflict seemed huge and insurmountable. And then it indeed was huge.
I don't know what you are really arguing at this point. Are you suggesting that globalization hasn't increased? Or that globalization does not serve as a disincentive for war? Trade as a percentage of GDP has roughly tripled over the last century. If you agree that the cost was huge then, it is even bigger now.
I'm arguing that "war harms trade and has a huge economic cost" is not on its own a strong argument for "war is not going to happen". The cost was huge then but not large enough to prevent war. How do we know it's large enough now?
It doesn't even sound that far fetched. For example, in recent months there have been many articles in (even "serious") newspapers speculating about war between US and China in the next decades. Perhaps it's just fearmongering but apparently no editor told those journalists: "that's ridiculous, don't you know about globalization"? You must think it's obviously and completely impossible? Do you then think China will not try to control Taiwan? Or they will and no serious sanctions will be imposed?
>I'm arguing that "war harms trade and has a huge economic cost" is not on its own a strong argument for "war is not going to happen".
What evidence do you have to support this theory? What wars have occurred between large trading partners?
> The cost was huge then but not large enough to prevent war. How do we know it's large enough now?
To be clear my argument is not that war is impossible. If Russian nukes Finland or something, that would likely start a world war. My argument is that globalization creates an interconnected web in which countries are dependent on each other. The stronger those links are between countries the harder it is to severe them which raises the barrier for engaging in war. At a certain point that barrier gets high enough that the only things that clear it are existential threats because severing those trade ties is also an existential threat to maintaining the status quo of society. It is just another flavor of mutually assured destruction. MAD doesn’t make war impossible. It is a disincentive that helps prevent war. It also helps prevent anything that would sever those trade connections such as heavy sanctions. Evidence for this theory includes the last 80 years of world history. As an example, the world can acknowledge that China is committing genocide and yet they receive little punishment for it because no one is willing to put up with even just the self imposed economic harm of heavily sanctioning China. If genocide doesn’t muster any serious response, AI development won’t either.
> For example, in recent months there have been many articles in (even "serious") newspapers speculating about war between US and China in the next decades.
Plenty of people talked about war between NATO countries and the Soviet Union but that notably never happened. Talking about war has slightly less economic downside than actual war.
That argument has been made many times before since WW1 to argue that war between major powers is impossible. It has never proven true yet.