War is not only a question of ethics and humanitarian disaster. It is bad news for business. For a car giant like Volkswagen, whose business model is built on consumer appeal, it made sense to stop and pause when Turkey attacked the Kurds in Syria. A $1.4 billion Volkswagen investment in a new plant in Turkey has been put on hold by the management and rightly so.

Unlike business areas more or less immune from consumer pressure — like some financial sectors, for example — car buying is a people thing. It is done by regular people who follow the news and don’t want to associate themselves with or stimulate crimes against humanity and war crimes through their purchases. Investing in a war-mongering country simply is bad for an international brand. As soon as the news hit that Turkey would be starting their military invasion against the Kurds, questions about plans for genocide appeared in the public discourse. Investing over a billion in such a political climate does not make sense.