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  • 2018-12-06 (xsd:date)
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  • Have Two McDonald’s-Containing Countries Ever Been at War with Each Other? (en)
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  • In 1996, columnist Thomas Friedman came up with what is known as the Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention, the notion that no two countries with McDonald's franchises have ever gone to war with each other. People in McDonald's countries, he said, don't like to fight wars. They like to wait in line for burgers, and countries with middle classes large enough to sustain a McDonald's have reached a level of prosperity and global integration that makes warmongering risky and unpalatable to its people. Although Friedman's idea was somewhat tongue-in-cheek and not necessarily meant to be taken literally and absolutely, it does not seem to have held true in all cases. Some may disagree over which armed conflicts truly constitute wars, but a look to the Balkans disproves the McDonald's theory. The first McDonald’s in what was then Yugoslavia opened up to much fanfare on 24 March 1988 in Belgrade, now the capital of Serbia: As tensions mounted between different national and ethnic groups within Yugoslav society, the existence of a McDonald’s was actually a point of conflict within the fracturing federation: A series of bloody conflicts in the 1990s resulted in the piecemeal dissolution of Yugoslavia and led to the Kosovo War, which was waged between February 1998 and June 1999 and pitted the forces of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (an entity comprising Montenegro and Serbia) against the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) rebel group, the latter supported by the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation in the air and the Albanian army on the ground. It was the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, whose capital was Belgrade, that U.S.-led NATO forces bombed during the Kosovo War between 24 March 1999 and 10 June 1999. Several McDonald’s-containing countries, including the United States, participated in this campaign, which can accurately be described as pitting several McDonald’s countries against the McDonald’s-containing country known then as the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia: In fact, a Belgrade McDonald's was used as a bomb shelter during those air strikes, which were dubbed Operation Allied Forces by the United States military: Several other examples of military conflicts between McDonald's-containing countries could be proffered as exceptions to the Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention, including the following: (en)
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