When War Trumps Commercial Interests

One hundred years ago yesterday, the unthinkable happened. Britain went to war against Germany, transforming a continental conflict into a global conflagration that became known as World War I.

Conventional wisdom at the time had it that such nations could never go to war. After all, they were each others’ largest trading partners and commercial interests would suffer if they became enemies.

Flash forward from the trenches that still scar the European countryside – where an entire generation of Britons and Germans were destroyed – to today’s increasing aggression at the hands of the country with which America does more business than any other: Communist China.

The surest way to find ourselves at war with the Chinese is to pretend, and behave as though, that can’t happen. Unfortunately, if that’s China’s goal, it can.