Hard disagree there. Trade has only taken priority because we've had such a long period of peace. Logistics fuel military power, but it turns out trade only happens when the more powerful party assents to it, if they do not then the weaker state may decide to inflict it's own trade relations on the weaker nation.
Many people in 1913 that trade was the most important factor in determining politics, that the global trade networks would prevent a truly large and terrible war, and that money was mightier than the musket.
It turns out that when the lights start to go out, when things start to go bad, and it becomes a matter of survival the power that matters is not trade but your ability to feed the pitiless war machine, and at that point your trade agreements mean squat if you don't have the ability to enforce those trade agreements with the barrel of gun.
It's not polite, it's not civilized, it's not fair, but just like the people raised in the Victorian era were given a rude awakening in the trenches of the Somme and the fields of Verdun about how circumstantial civilized behaviors are; so to will we be find our own base natures soon brought to the fore if we continue to pray to the false god of economic progress, and give offerings upon the altar of money in hopes of forestalling the looming crises we face.
Hard disagree there. Trade has only taken priority because we've had such a long period of peace. Logistics fuel military power, but it turns out trade only happens when the more powerful party assents to it, if they do not then the weaker state may decide to inflict it's own trade relations on the weaker nation.
Many people in 1913 that trade was the most important factor in determining politics, that the global trade networks would prevent a truly large and terrible war, and that money was mightier than the musket.
It turns out that when the lights start to go out, when things start to go bad, and it becomes a matter of survival the power that matters is not trade but your ability to feed the pitiless war machine, and at that point your trade agreements mean squat if you don't have the ability to enforce those trade agreements with the barrel of gun.
It's not polite, it's not civilized, it's not fair, but just like the people raised in the Victorian era were given a rude awakening in the trenches of the Somme and the fields of Verdun about how circumstantial civilized behaviors are; so to will we be find our own base natures soon brought to the fore if we continue to pray to the false god of economic progress, and give offerings upon the altar of money in hopes of forestalling the looming crises we face.