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McDonald's: War and McPeace | Big Issue

However, the Golden Arches Theory was shaken by the end of the 1990s, after Nato began airstrikes on Belgrade (with its seven McDonald’s outlets) during the Balkans War. Friedman, however, claimed this as “a temporary exception that proved my rule”. Writing in the New York Times: “Once Nato turned out the lights in Belgrade, and shut down the power grids and the economy, Belgrade’s citizens demanded an end to the war. They wanted McDonald’s reopened, much more than they wanted Kosovo reoccupied"It’s that simple. They wanted to be part of the world, more than they wanted Kosovo to be part of them. They wanted McDonald’s reopened, much more than they wanted Kosovo reoccupied.” Other tests to the rule came in 1999 when India and Pakistan threatened to come to nuclear blows over Kashmir; when hostilities broke out between Israel and Lebanon in 2006, and when tensions between Russia and Georgia boiled over in 2008 – but these conflicts were relatively small scale and quickly resolved, Friedman would argue, thanks to economics. He later updated his Golden Arches notion into The Dell Theory of Conflict Prevention, stating that no two countries that are part of the same global supply chain would ever go to war, which is why territorial disputes between China and Taiwan rumble on but are unlikely to ever lead to military action.