A Big Mac, fries and… peace? A family enjoys their meal at the first McDonald's outlet in Vietnam on February 8, 2014.Quynh Trung Some three decades ago, I devoted a few weeks of work to profiling one of the world’s richest women. Joan B. Kroc, who died in 2003, was the widow of Ray Kroc, a former milkshake machine salesman whose business dealings with a pair of brothers would change the way America eats. The brothers owned a couple of hamburger joints, called McDonald’s. McDonald’s, under Ray Kroc’s leadership, would grow into a colossus that had opened more than 34,000 restaurants around the globe before it finally, last week, opened one in Vietnam. Somewhere in the Great Beyond, I suspect that both Ray and Joan would be pleased, but for very different reasons. To Ray, the new McDonald’s in Ho Chi Minh City would represent another victory in Asia – and long overdue, since there are already some 1,800 McDonald’s outlets in the People’s Republic of China. Joan might harbor the hope that the new franchise would serve not only Big Macs and McNuggets, but also the cause of world peace. That may sound Pollyannish, but Joan Kroc was a philanthropist who struck me as a kind of Mommy Peacebucks, contributing millions to such causes as nuclear disarmament and mostly liberal causes. She must have liked how, in his 2000 book “The Lexus and the Olive Tree,”New York Times foreign affairs columnist Thomas Friedman observed: “No two countries that both had McDonald’s had fought a war against each other since each got its McDonald’s.” Now, there were exceptions to the so-called “the Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Resolution,” such as NATO’s air strikes on Yugoslavia and the U.S. strike on Panama. Other exceptions came later in the Middle East and in the clash over Kashmir between India and Pakistan. So Ronald McDonald, the restaurant’s mascot, won’t be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Still, while the global march of American fast-food culture is often bemoaned as a homogenizing hegemonic force that fosters poor nutritional habits, aren’t prosperity and peace supposed to walk hand in hand? McDonald’s, Burger King, Starbucks, The Coffee Bean, KFC, Carl’s Jr, Dunkin’ Donuts, Baskin-Robbins – all have come to Vietnam to court the nation’s growing middle class. The same is true of Lotteria from South Korea and Jollibee from the Philippines. When a “McDonald’s country,” the theory goes, has achieved prosperity and economic interdependence, that might discourage the tribalism and nationalism which encourage hostilities. But mostly it’s all about two isms: capitalism and consumerism. It’s mostly about making a buck. Ray Kroc, I suspect, would be happy to do business with Henry Nguyen, the 40-year-old owner of Good Day Hospitality, McDonald’s local partner. Nguyen was born in Saigon but raised in America, where as a teenager he had summer jobs at a McDonald’s in Virginia. He returned to Vietnam as a Harvard-educated venture capitalist, and now his talk of opening 100 McDonald’s outlets in Vietnam and providing thousands of jobs over the next decade does not seem outlandish. (The Philippines has more than 400 McDonald’s.) World peace may be too much to hope for, but just as Vietnamese have embraced Col. Sanders, they may well embrace Ronald McDonald and Happy Meals. “McDonald’s in Vietnam is going to be packed with parents,” Markus Taussig, an assistant business professor at National University of Singapore and former Vietnam resident, told Jason Folkmanis ofBloomberg News. The parents, he said, may not eat the food, but “will be happy because watching their kids munch away on burgers makes them feel they’re part of something positive and modern.” But, actually, a bowl of pho bo (Vietnamese noodle soup with beef) is much better deal – and healthier too. SCOTT DUKE HARRIS