Anne Applebaum: At the height of this optimism, the “McDonald’s theory of international relations” was a thing one heard about quite frequently. The idea was that no country with a McDonald’s restaurant would ever go to war with another country with a McDonald’s restaurant, because in order to have a McDonald’s restaurant you had to be thoroughly integrated into the global economy, and if you were integrated into the global economy you would never attack another one of its members. This theory of “McPeace” was exploded, literally, by the U.S. bombardment of Belgrade, the city that in 1988 had opened the first McDonald’s restaurant in the whole of what was about to become the ex-communist bloc. But the hope that it might be true somehow lingered. This week, as Russia, a country with more than 400 McDonald’s, ramps up its attack on Ukraine, a country with more than 70 McDonald’s, I think we can finally declare the McPeace theory officially null and void.
Posted on: Sat, 09 Aug 2014 18:32:01 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015