The role of trade in war
Some may argue that trade is a great tool for deescalating big conflicts like it is the case in Ukraine. Lots of tribes are imposing trading sanctions to Russia in order to make Russia stop the aggression towards Ukraine and end the war. So far it has not stopped the aggression but hopefully it will.
So, is trade, in the end, a good tool to keep war at bay?
Well, one has to wonder why has Russia been able to be aggressive with Ukraine in the first place. They have a huge army, but Europe also depends on them trade-wise. Quite a lot in terms on energy supply. So one can definitely argue that Russia used trade as a way to grow its aggression because it knew that Europe fears to intervene since they will lose in the game of trade if they did. Russia may as well have used (and they did use) trade as a way to gain aggression towards Ukraine for the past 8 or so years. Europe only intervened when it got threatened.
If anything trade allows for dictators to raise to power and maintain it. To abuse others and to enslave their own. And yes, at times trade can be used to minimize or stop the conflict, but the conflict may have been caused by trade itself. Like India seems to be very quiet and reluctant to accuse Russia's actions. They also import some 50% of their total armament from Russia for the past 4 or so years (source). So it is likely that trade makes a massive tribe like India do what Europe did in the beginning of the conflict: abstain. And since the conflict doesn't pose a threat to India, they keep on abstaining.
One can also argue that USA also has a lot to gain from going against Russia with the sanctions, since USA can take over the energy market in Europe if Russia gets kicked out.
Imagine this: if Europe had no trade agreements with Russia, then why would Europe let this situation escalate so much before taking some measures? They would probably have helped Ukraine much sooner with all kinds of assistance, military or humanitarian.
So keep these in mind, because the situation is never as black and white as it appears in the media.
If the Russian soldiers were not forced to trade their freedom (go to the army then to war, else you go to jail) then who would have wanted to join the army and go kill others? A lot less for sure. Maybe no one would.
If Russians (and not only) had their basic needs met as trade-free, so food, shelter, healthcare, freedom and so forth, then they could have had a choice and not join the military. But then you threaten them to get their food, shelter and freedom away if they do not join, so they have little to no choice.
But the bottom line is that trade is the origin of MOST problems, not all problems. So even if trade played no negative role in the current conflict, and can be used to avoid a WW3, then it still does not chnage the fact that trade pushes people to enslave, pollute, destroy, and so forth. On a global scale.
Also, what if instead of Europe and USA and others pumping weapons of mass destruction into Ukraine and into defending themselves, attacked the situation with solutions and built more homes, created more food, better energy sources, and so forth, so that they lure in people from Russia to join them, rather than kill them. To come and have a good life, without trading anything in return. To focus on informing people that we are all one species and we are taking care of each other. But perhaps those who trade weapons have a great incentive to lure in politicians into spending more on weapons and sending them to the conflict zone....
So, you want to end this war? Give all Russians free EU membership/access and trade-free access to accommodation, healthcare, food and their basic needs, and perhaps they will drop their weapons because why would they want to fight anymore?
It is true that all sorts of distorted values come into mix when such conflicts are happening, but they usually are a mere layer of sugar on top of a big cake, and the cake is the trade based system we live in. And whatever is on top of it, it is affected by it. That we should not brush aside.
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