8. Economic Globalization, Realpolitik, New Wars

The end of bipolarity has not led to the “Pax Americana”, globalization has not led to the development of a peaceful free market, but instead the past few years have seen the outbreak of new wars, not just between states (that in some cases have lost their monopoly in the use of violence), often of an asymmetric type as regards both the aims followed and the conduct of the fighting. This unexpected sharpening of violence has led to the proposal of various interpretations: many political commentators, geographers and sociologists, and a few economists have grasped the return to geopolitical ideas concerning the cause of war, and some sociologists and economists have returned to the realism of H. Morgenthau and R. Aron (of the 1950s), updated to neorealism or structural realism (K. Waltz). These currents of thought blame the causes of contemporary wars on political factors which, for geopolitics, are to be found in territorial questions, while for neorealism the causes are to be sought in the state of chaos that reigns in international relations between states that became more acute after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the end to bipolarity. The School of Public Choice not only holds that modern war can be economically rational, but contests the character of public good in defence and believes that in this sector too, a market, albeit imperfect, is preferable to the action of the state.