Golden arches theory of world peace lies in ruins

On Tuesday, following some backlash and calls for boycotts, McDonald's announced that it would temporarily close 850 stores in Russia in response to the country's invasion of Ukraine. "The situation is extraordinarily challenging for a global brand like ours, and there are many considerations," McDonald's President and CEO Chris Kempczinski wrote in a statement.

Among the shuttered will be the Pushkin Square McDonald's in Moscow that, in 1990, served over 30,000 Muscovites on its opening day in what was thought to be a watershed moment in the Cold War thaw.

The unlikely role of America's biggest hamburger chain in bringing about the end of the Soviet Union remains surreal. But the heady dream days of the post-Cold War 1990s had plenty of frivolous moments — especially for an America in a triumphal mood.

Where Crystal Pepsi and SUVs spoke to the decade's whimsy and insulation, Beanie Babies and the dot-com bubble spoke to its crazes of speculation and fantasy. Even as the U.S. trade deficit began to skyrocket by the late 1990s, mythmaking became one of the nation's chief exports. The term "unipolar world" began to fill international relations textbooks and, by 1998, figures like Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright had bestowed the United States with monikers like "the indispensable nation."

Out of the haze of this (supposedly) happy era emerged the Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention. This idea, put forth by Thomas Friedman in a December 1996 column, posited that "No two countries that both have a McDonald's have ever fought a war against each other." The admittedly semi-serious theory offered an easy shorthand for a broader belief at the time that common economic interests and increasing global connectedness would supersede the causes of conflict between nations.

"The question raised by the McDonald's example," Friedman wrote, "is whether there is a tip-over point at which a country, by integrating with the global economy, opening itself up to foreign investment and empowering its consumers, permanently restricts its capacity for troublemaking and promotes gradual democratization and widening peace."

Unfortunately, in short time, the thesis would be complicated by NATO's bombing of Yugoslavia and skirmishes between India and Pakistan, both in the first half of 1999. When Israel and Hezbollah went to battle in 2006, foreign policy pundits further arched their eyebrows.

Today, one trivial side effect of Russia's ongoing invasion of Ukraine is that it has brought the theory back for examination once again. And while Friedman's premise is as wrong as it always has been, it's also increasingly clear that it misunderstood something fundamental about the global order — and the role of the United States in it.

What is implicit in the Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention is the idea that the economic system upholding it would be American-led. This, after all, is why McDonald's, the quintessential American export, is so important. Back in 1986, even before the Cold War had ended and the Golden Arches theory seemed possible, the Economist launched the Big Mac Index, which uses the price of a Big Mac around the world as a way to gauge what currency values should be.

Here, too, the key point was that the United States set the pace, or at least manufactured the measuring stick. That aspect of the ongoing conflict also looks very different today. European nations — perhaps most dramatically Germany — have taken unexpectedly muscular roles in the crisis in Ukraine, while America's work has largely happened behind the scenes and has not (as of yet) changed Russia's course of action.

Whether Russia's invasion has revealed the limitations of American power or reminded many of the durability of its allure, the reality is that countries — whether they go to war or not — don't always act in their own economic interests or with values and sensibilities that easily translate across borders.

The Golden Arches theory of war and peace symbolizes a seductive post-Cold War optimism that now seems quaint, naive and a bit narcissistic in hindsight. The shredding of the theory and the optimism that inspired it is a reminder of how fleeting peace is and how messy power is, regardless of whether a market can attract a popular international chain.