Let’s not throw the theory out with the Big Mac

Scott McLemee has an Inside Higher Ed essay that considers how the Russia-Georgia conflict has affected bigthink in world politics.  Here's how it opens:  One minor casualty of the recent conflict in Georgia was the doctrine of peace through McGlobalization — a belief first elaborated by Thomas Friedman in 1999, and left in ruins on August 8, when Russian troops moved into South Ossetia. “No two countries that both had McDonald’s had fought a war against each other since each got its McDonald’s,” wrote Friedman in The Lexus and the Olive Tree (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux). Not that the fast-food chain itself had a soothing effect, of course. The argument was that international trade and modernization — and the processes of liberalization and democratization created in their wakes — would knit countries together in an international civil society that made war unnecessary. There would still be conflict. But it could be contained — made rational, and even profitable, like competition between Ronald and his competitors over at Burger King. (Thomas Friedman does not seem like a big reader of Kant, but his thinking here bears some passing resemblance to the philosopher’s “Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Perspective,” an essay from 1784.) McDonald’s opened in Russia in 1990 — a milestone of perestroika, if ever there were one. And Georgia will celebrate the tenth anniversary of its first Micky D’s early next year, assuming anybody feels up for it. So much for Friedman’s theory. Presumably it could be retooled ex post facto (“two countries with Pizza Huts have never had a thermonuclear conflict,” anyone?) but that really seems like cheating. Ever since a friend pointed out that the golden arches no longer serve as a peace sign, I have been wondering if some alternative idea would better fit the news from Georgia. Is there a grand narrative that subsumes recent events? What generalizations seem possible, even necessary and urgent, now? What, in short, is the Big Idea? Now I recommend giving the rest of the essay a read -- but the premise upon which McLemee bases the piece is a bit bogus.  Social science theories tends towards the probabilistic.  Just because one McGlobalized country has invaded another McGlobalized country does not mean that the "theory" has no explanatory power.  There's no need to reject the general trend that globalized states tend to not attack each other.  There's certainly no need to throw out Kant with Friedman.  Furthermore, one could argue that the causal processes articulated in the theory are actually working pretty well.  Russia's stock market fell by more than 4% after yesterday's recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.  As Lex points out on the FT blog:  By any normal measures, the Russian market – down 36 per cent since May - is now as cheap as a bottle of bootleg vodka. Sadly, investors are concluding Russia is not a normal country. Its choice of confrontation with the west will do little immediate damage to its economy - $1bn a day is still flowing in from exports of oil, gas, and oil products. But the damage to growth and the development of its market could be long-lasting.... If reforms are slow or non-existent, long-term earnings growth will be slower too, and vulnerability to commodity shocks higher. Investors will demand a premium to reflect the political and event risk. Russia’s chances of closing the valuation gap with China and India – which it never quite managed – recede sharply. How much of that worst-case scenario comes to pass will depend, in part, on how the current crisis evolves. Meantime, investors will continue their retreat from Moscow in favour of places that act in their own long-term economic self-interest. So, in the end, the war has resulted in losers on all sides.  Georgia has obviously lost through its aggressive behavior towards the breakaway provinces.  The United States and Europe has lost because they clearly were not able to deter Russia in Georgia.  Russia has gained the humiliation of Georgia, but is has lost in terms of its ability to raise capital and coordinate among its erstwhile allies, who seem to be juuuuust a bit nervous right now.    Now the sixty-four thousand dollar euro dollar question is whether these costs will deter further military aggression by all the parties involved.  My instinct says yes, despite all this "new Cold War" rhetoric -- but I want to hear from readers on this question.