The Strategic Consequences of Economic Strife
Charles W. King
Recent years have seen increasing support for populism all across the industrialized world. Many analysts have correctly diagnosed populism’s increasing popularity as a symptom of increasing economic inequality and stratification. The increased clout of populist politicians and parties in the United States and Europe should not be considered domestic issues for each to address individually. Rather is has become clear that economic inequality has broader strategic ramifications. The economic wellbeing of nation’s directly affect their political stability and politically unstable nations are dangerous and unpredictable actors on the world stage.
The greatest global conflict prior to the twentieth century was a direct result of the political upheaval caused by the failure of France to enact political and economic reforms in the eighteenth century. The Napoleonic Wars were not simply the ambition of a single artillery officer. Napoleon Bonaparte would never had the opportunity to become Emperor if the revolutionary government of France was not forced to turn to conquest by the domestic political unrest in revolutionary France. The chaotic state of France during the reign of terror and the Directorate were themselves only possible because the Bourbon dynasty had failed to address the political and economic concerns of the French middle and lower classes. Failure to recognize and remedy economic suffering in France led directly to revolution and a war that was waged all across Europe and upon every ocean.
Saber rattling and wars of aggression are frequently used by politicians as a remedy for domestic political instability. The Austro-Prussian and Franco-Prussian Wars of 1866 and 1870 helped turn domestic strife in multiple independent German states into a single unified Germany. The poor German economy in the interwar period was a major factor in the rise of the Nazi party and popular support for their aggressive policies. The Chinese Communist Party continues to rely on current economic growth and the Century of Humiliation to help it maintain political control of the People’s Republic of China. Cuba, Iran, and Venezuela vilify the United States as a way to pass responsibility for domestic poverty onto a foreign oppressor. History demonstrates that nations that are economically scared are politically unstable and potentially aggressive. At the very least they tend to be isolationist and hostile.
Economics directly affects the domestic politics and foreign relations of every nation. For decades the United States has recognized that political instability abroad in not in its strategic interest. Policy makers must now also realize that economic inequality and exploitation will damage American interests as alliances and trade pacts fissure, and angry populations promote saber rattling and the return of wars of aggression.