In a graduate-level course on international
business, a professor sketched out the political-economic philosophy of international
business, whose mantra is that if two or more countries have enough trade and foreign
direct-investment, those countries would be less likely to go to war. In short,
economic interdependence, thanks to international business, can render war
obsolete and thus greatly enhance the human condition. Decades after I had
taken that course, a business professor at the same university wrote extensively
on the role that business can play in facilitating peace. Unfortunately, that
economically-sourced theory of international relations downplays or ignores
that the reasons or rationales for going to war and the decisions taken by a government for military-strategic
reasons during a war can trump the (especially immediate) economic benefits from
international business, whether in terms of imports, exports, or foreign
direct-investment by foreign firms at home or by domestic firms abroad. This can
occur even though revenue from taxes or state-owned enterprises having to do
with trade and foreign-direct investment can help a government in fighting a
war. The case of Ukraine cutting off Russian natural gas from traveling through
Ukraine in pipes to the E.U. as of January 1, 2025 is illustrative of vulnerability
in the theory of international business as a way to world peace.
The full essay is at "On the Potential of International Business."
