Heni Ozi Cukier

However, World War I taught us a very important lesson.

Economics may explain what can be done, but politics decides what will be done.

Fear, ambition, miscalculation, all overrode by even the strongest economic success, showing us that

simply war and peace are not decided by economic arguments alone.

We have to take into consideration political, ideological, and strategic reasons.

Okay, so what is going on with the second perspective?

And the common perspective says the following.

People will assume that nations, they want to be wealth and powerful.

It's not that they don't want that, they do, but they want something else.

It's better for them if they are wealthier or more powerful than their rivals, right?

So what matters is the relative power.

I want to be more powerful and I wanna be just powerful.

I want to be more powerful than my enemy or my rival.

Let's look at what happened at World War II.

And in that moment, Germany and Japan, they did not see trade as mutually beneficial.

Why?

They were gaining less than their rivals, Britain, France, and the US, which made them vulnerable.

What was their response?

Searching for self-sufficiency and eventually war.

All right, so what is going on today?