I know that sounds ridiculous, but think about it. How often do we fight countries that watch our sitcoms and have McDonalds?

Thomas Friedman actually wrote a book chapter about how no two nations with a McDonald's have ever gone to war. (McDonald's entering a nation is in some way a yardstick of industrialization, the emergence of a middle class, positive attitudes towards foreigners in general, etc.) I found a quick summary of "The Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention" here, though it was sadly damaged by the recent eruption of hostilities between Lebanon and Israel, and depends on how you classify the NATO action against McDonald's-having Serbia. (Regarding the former, Friedman loyalists will likely point out that it was Hezbollah, not the Lebanese government per se that provoked the conflict, and Hezbollah is essentially a proxy of Iran and Syria, both of which lack the McNugget technology.)

Later revisions have argued that McDonald's is too low-rent to be a good yardstick, and have suggested either Starbucks or Dell as a substitute.

valguarnera@carrionfields.com