Russia and the death of the Golden Arches theory

Ah, well, it was a lovely idea, born of the age of liberal-democratic triumphalism that was the 1990s: the ‘Golden Arches theory’, which held that no two countries that had McDonald’s franchises had ever been – or would ever go – to war. Remarkably, it wasn’t the product of McDonald’s PR department but the work of New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. He argued that the arrival of McDonald’s signified a society that had become so consumerist that enough people had enough invested in economic stability to ever risk a war.

Armed conflict ain’t good for the hamburger trade

The final nail in the coffin of the Golden Arches theory has come with the news that McDonald’s is to abandon Russia permanently. Restaurants hurriedly closed at the beginning of the Ukraine invasion – all 847 of them – will not reopen. The theory has effectively been turned on its head: it is no longer that no two countries with McDonald’s will ever go to war, but that McDonald’s won’t necessarily hang around in a country which does go to war – less an interesting observation on economics, geopolitics and philosophy than a straightforward statement that armed conflict ain’t good for the hamburger trade.