BETWEEN THE END of the American Civil War in 1865 and the beginning of the First World War in 1914, the first great period of human globalization brought the world together as never before. Technologies like the railroad, the telegraph, the airplane, and the internal combustion engine led many optimistic observers to predict the end of large-scale war. We often hear similar arguments today. Are they as wrong now as they were then?

On the eve of that era's violent destruction, Norman Angell predicted in his best-selling book The Great Illusion that commerce among Europe's great powers had finally rendered war obsolete. Angell declared that it was economically irrational for any European power to upset the global economy through continental conquest. He argued that the gains of conquest were substantially outweighed by the costs of war. Economically speaking, he was undoubtedly correct. He was also irrelevant. In less than a year, the guns of August shattered his vision and the First World War mired Europe in four years of hell on earth. However economically detrimental it may have been, war was not obsolete.

The first era of globalization shared many common characteristics with our present era of burgeoning trade, rising powers, and a hegemonic security provider. What Britain did then, the United States does to an even greater degree now. That era accordingly provides interesting parallels to our current globalized period. Namely, in that era, intelligent observers viewed war between great powers as economically inefficient and therefore improbable. Perhaps unsurprisingly, we hear the same arguments today: In the face of free trade and global interconnectedness, free people will not make war on one another.

It is worth examining this enduring notion that commerce can pacify cultural rivalry. It has not done so historically, and there is no guarantee that it will do so now. In other words: It is worth looking at why Norman Angell was wrong.

IN THE FIRST GLOBAL ERA, Great Britain loosely filled the United States' current role as guarantor of global stability. To a lesser degree than American aircraft carriers do today, the Royal Navy preponderantly ruled the seas. Also like the contemporary United States, a democratic Britain maintained strategic bases around the globe.

Likewise, in that era, many emerging nations benefited from a unilaterally provided security blanket. All nations engaging in global trade reaped the benefits of such commerce, but Britain alone maintained responsibility for patrolling the world's seas and keeping the lanes of maritime commerce open. In essence, Britain subsidized a sizeable share of global stability.

In the present era, the United States subsidizes global security for much the same reasons Britain did--the costs of maintaining such military preponderance are substantially outweighed by the benefits of open markets and forward-based power projection. For a percentage of GDP that is less than the percentage of GDP spent on the military during the Cold War, the United States reaps valuable economic and strategic gains.

In the late 19th century, the emerging economic giants were Germany and the United States, each with sizeable and growing populations. Towards the end of that era, an ascendant Japan was also rapidly gunning for great-power status--even militarily defeating Russia in 1905.

Arguably, each of these nations derived significant economic benefits from the British security guarantee. As a democratic nation, Britain possessed little desire for costly wars on the European continent, or for that matter, on the North American continent. Such a large-scale war would undoubtedly spread the costs of war down to the voting British people, and the instigators of such a conflict would suffer electoral consequences. While Britain was constantly engaged in small-scale wars in Africa, the Indian sub-continent, and elsewhere in Asia, defending and expanding its colonial possessions, its naval dominance posed little real threat to German, American, or even Japanese security. Britain alone was dedicated to a policy of free trade, and Britain staunchly defended free navigation on the high seas.