If goods can't cross borders, then armies soon will

The mechanics of international relations based on access to resources

Image credit: Substack AI

The national security argument for trade has sometimes been expressed as thus: if goods can't cross borders, then armies soon will. This is not just due to the development of sympathies between citizens of countries that trade, and the entanglements of their economies. It is mainly due to the mechanics of resource distribution.

Both commodities and the benefits of strategic locations have a lumpy distribution on this planet. Why? Because... well, geology and geography. And due to different know-how and comparative advantage, manufactured goods and some tradeable services are also unequally produced, quality and price wise.

There are two ways for people, businesses, and governments, to get resources that they don't currently have due to the lumpiness of these things. One is trade. The other is theft, which is what it’s called when people or businesses are doing it. It’s called war when governments do it. So: the solution to getting resources you don’t have, is either trade, or war.

History bears this out. We can crudely assign a good chunk of the reasons for WWI to the German government’s resentment of having been left out from the race to own colonies. WWII was squarely about Hitler's government wanting more land in the East. Specifically, they wanted Ukraine's oil first, for their war effort. In the Pacific, the 1930s US tariffs and later embargoes were instrumental in pushing the Japanese government to invade China first, then SE Asia. Whenever there are big impediments to trade, or general international distrust, governments take resources by force.

There is one factor here, and that is country size. The larger the country, the more diverse the resources within that country. The case for the European Union was always: absence of trade barriers, increased economies of scale, hence efficiency. And just as importantly: a larger domestic market has a larger variety of goods, commodities, and geographic access all within its borders. It is a qualitative difference to be in a larger domestic market, not just a case of increased efficiency. Larger countries are less vulnerable to trade wars and trade barriers than smaller countries. Reason #247 why Brexit was such a stupid idea and only helps Putin’s Russia.

And today? I do not believe for one minute the current US administration's bizarre ideas are all just Trumps' thinking, or his witch doctors’ like RFK-not-OK or Navarro Bizarro. The exact path of the tariff saga is a random walk but there is an ideological unity behind it. The US government for better or worse, for worse actually, feels that trade makes you dependent. I disagree with that of course, but so it is. When the Trump government's ideologues want Canada, Greenland, and Panama, it is because they want the US near autarky. And there are a few resources the US doesn't have, such as those rare Earths in Greenland. The US also does not have much titanium and in the cold war famously had to go to a lot of trickery to get Russian titanium over third countries. Today,the US still imports nearly 100% of its titanium sponge. The top global producers are China, Japan, Russia, and Kazakhstan. Titanium sponge is used to make metallic titanium. And guess where else there is titanium… Greenland.

The US seems to want a North American block that has within its borders most if not all essential commodities, and control access of all oceans surrounding it, including the polar route. Because they do not want to have to trade with any other country ever again.

Internationally, it appears to me that the US government wants to do to China what the US did to Japan pre-WWII - prevent it from trading, and prevent it from controlling strategic geography and access to outside commodity resources. This, to make sure that China is not in the position the US wants to be in, meaning, autarky and control of oceans surrounding it. Clearly the Chinese government sees this as a threat. Its embrace of solar probably reflects a path to energy independence more than a desire to contribute to climate policy. We should all be thankful for that, given that Japan went to war for oil, in WWII. Taiwan is probably more about access and control of the island chain and trade routes than about Taiwan in and by itself. etc.

The biggest irony of this all is that Belt and Road, and current developments in the tariff clownerie, make China look like the world's biggest defender of free and peaceful trade at this point. And the EU of course. China and the EU have a lot in common in this mess. Both depend on trade for some key essentials, e.g. energy, even though they are both obviously very large blocks with great internal resource diversity. The EU and China already are world’s largest trading blocks – leading the US in international trade volume. And interestingly, both China and the EU have small to nonexistent military expeditionary forces able to meddle in international affairs. That would be yer olde USA. And Russia. Frankly at this point I really see China and the EU as a potential trade axis of peace, while the US and Russia have seemingly based their whole geopolitical strategies on territorial expansion through military means.

I should add that I think Clausewitz does miss the point a bit about the causes of war. War is not just the continuation of politics through other means. Politics is generally about getting most of what you want most of the time, by giving others most of what they want most of the time in return. It is a form of trade.

War happens when trade cannot happen.