McDonald's as a Peace Keeping Force? Let's Google It!

Today in my Environment and Culture anthropology class we were discussing whether war was inevitable in all cultures and societies, or not. We agreed, basically, that while human aggression and violence may be inevitable, it is specific cultural and societal conditions that lead to war. In today's world, this happens less and less because of the global economy that promotes trade and business with countries all over the world, thus needing to be on peaceful terms with them.

This is when our professor spouted a quote about how no 2 countries that have McDonald's have ever been in a war with one another.

Is this TRUE?

Let's google it!





According to wikpedia, not so much (although pretty darn close):


Thomas Friedman once said that no country with a McDonald's had gone to war with another. However, the "Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention" is not strictly true. Careful historians point to the 1989 United States invasion of Panama, NATO's bombing of Serbia in 1999, the 2006 Lebanon War, and the 2008 South Ossetia War as exceptions.

Some observers have suggested that the company should be given credit for increasing the standard of service in markets that it enters. A group of anthropologists in a study entitled Golden Arches East (Stanford University Press, 1998, edited by James L. Watson) looked at the impact McDonald's had on East Asia, and Hong Kong in particular. When it opened in Hong Kong in 1975, McDonald's was the first restaurant to consistently offer clean restrooms, driving customers to demand the same of other restaurants and institutions. In East Asia in particular, McDonald's have become a symbol for the desire to embrace Western cultural norms. McDonald's have recently taken to partnering up with Sinopec, China's second largest oil company, in the People's Republic of China, as it begins to take advantage of China's growing use of personal vehicles by opening numerous drive-thru restaurants.[36] The only countries in Europe not to have McDonald's stores are Albania, Armenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Vatican City.

The pope doesn't want a Mickey D's in the Vatican city?? No wonder he's so grouchy. A world without chicken mcnuggets is ....well gosh, not a world at all.

Maybe mcdonald's hasn't solved all the conflict in the world, but it's certainly made it a better place *cue crescendo of cheesy music*


(okay, maybe those last comments were slightly tongue in cheek. Or maybe not. You decide)