I do apologize for always taking so long to respond to your posts.
No worries
The Germans certainly remembered every attempt by the French to prevent their unification, going back to the Napoleonic wars. This shaped their outlook moving forward and could be considered their reason for the Franco-German war in 1870-71. The war the lead to them taking away Alsace Lorraine from the french, something that France would not forgive or forget. The Germans after unification would then move towards becoming the biggest industrialized power in Europe, for which they felt they needed a navy on par with the british to protect or challenge their trade and colonial empire. But this was not a trade war as it is being discussed here, because every year up until 1914, trade between the French and British was increasing, their economies more interdependent. It can almost be said that the increased trade fueled the arms race that followed. This arms race was not a cheap one, and yet with access to cheap steel imports, cheaper foodstuff, it actually made the arms buildup more affordable.
I don't necessarily disagree with any of this, though I think as a general concept you underplay the importance of trade in creating bonds between nation states and the cost/benefit analysis that goes into any war. If the amount of trade between France & Germany was of significant enough amount, does the Franco-Prussian war even happen? Do they take Alsace Lorraine (which I'd have to check a primary source to confirm, but if memory serves was largely taken for it's coal and lumber supplies) if the cost of the lost trade is worth more than they expect to gain from snatching a relatively small (though strategically important) region? I get that there is a large amount of colonialist era politics involved here that had a lot of ego, national pride, etc wrapped up in it, but the cold hard calculus of cost/benefit can't be ignored. Most decisions, macro and micro tend to line up with some version of cost/benefit.
To flip it another way, does France antagonize the Prussians for decades if there is a valuable trade relationship that they're trying to nurture? They legitimately felt threatened when Leopold made a claim on the Spanish throne, fearing encirclement by Prussian enemies. Find a way to shoehorn a thriving trade relationship in there and now it's not so threatening, a Prussian claim on the Spanish throne potentially opens up more trade options.
Ok, sure the collapse of the global economy due to protectionism did result in the rise of Hitler. I'll give you that. But if you accuse me of being simplistic about the origins of WW1, I in return accuse you of being simplistic by saying WW2 was the result of smoot-hawley and other trade wars os the 1930s.
I didn't claim that. I claimed that the protectionist reactions of the US to the great depression created the soil for fascism to grow out of in Europe. Happy, relatively wealthy populaces don't tend to gravitate towards nutters who want to overturn the system that has them fat and rich.
The lack of strong international institutions to punish and restrain any nation aggressively expanding their borders played a far bigger role. The utter reluctance of the global powers to keep Japan, Germany, Italy and the Soviet Union in line had far more to do with it. Great Britain and France forgiving German reparations at the Lausanne Conference allowing for their economy to recover almost overnight and thus build up their war industry had way more to do with it.
I don't disagree with any of this, but I don't think you're framing it properly. Yeah, the lack of strong international institutions to restrain aggression was a major factor, but you have to ask yourself why the LoN failed as it did. It failed largely because of a lack of true interconnectivety between the major nations, and because nobody had a stomache for war (other than the Germans...) with WW1 no further behind them than 9/11 is to us. It simply wasn't in the best interests of any of the participants to stick their neck out for anyone else in the group, and nobody was willing to go to the wall.
For the Germans, who were always searching for more rubber and more oil, increased trade only helped them wage more war.
Granted, but the alternative is what exactly? Are you suggesting that if Germany doesn't have access to markets they don't go to war? I wouldn't put forward the argument that trade is going to make Hitler not be Hitler. I would though put forward the argument that strong trade relationships will stop a population from generating Hitler's as their leader. If Hitler is just some ******* yelling on the street corner in Munich amidst an era of economic prosperity in Germany, he never makes a single history book.
You can have all the trade you want, if a despot thinks that they can get away with using military force they will do so. Ref Crimea. Russia has probably never been so integrated into the European and global economy as it was pre Crimea little green men invasion, but a strongman with an army is still more than willing to use military force for gain, damn the economic ramifications. Because they can get away with it.
Russia is a bit of a different beast though, as their relationship with Europe is less a partnership and more that of dealer/junkie. Yeah, you don't care if you shake down your addicted customer for their new shoes every one in a while, because you've got what they really need and it's not shoes. Europe provides little to Russia that it can't source elsewhere (machinery, pharma, chemicals) while Russia provides what can't be gotten anywhere else (Energy).
Though I would argue that a key reason that situation hasn't escalated, and that Russia only nibbles on the absolute edges of it's old empire is the economic/trade penalties placed on Russia after Crimea. They've seen trade with the EU plummet since 2014, and are pretty desperately trying to avoid new sanctions while getting old sanctions removed. They're just doing it the Russian way by subverting democracies instead of trying to play nice.
I think it's fair to say that Vlad miscalculated the potential reaction of the West to his adventure in Crimea. They see the American political establishment pretty galvanized against them (though they have their orange ace up their sleeve holding back the reaction wave at the moment) and they see the Europeans accelerating their efforts to kick their oil and gas addiction in direct reaction to Russian aggression. Vlad overplayed his hand and underestimated the effects of interconnectivety imo, we just haven't seen it fully play out yet. The pieces are lined up though.
