War and peace in times of globalization.

Continued globalization certainly is not an inevitable and inexorable phenomenon. There have been several previous waves of "globalization", with increased integration of capital, labor and goods markets and impressive technical improvements: in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, but also in the eighteenth century. The earlier episodes came to an end, in large measure because of domestic political reactions to new inequalities apparently generated by globalization. Earlier globalization eras also ended because of the impact of external conflicts. Wars, even small wars, make people think more in terms of security and more in terms of relative gains and losses, and less in terms of mutual advantage and collective goods. In a world obsessed by conflict, the rules that are necessarily required in operating an interdependent global order are reinterpreted as being the arbitrary imposition of a hegemonic power.