You heard it Sheepy, pls make more war thx.
The game is fundamentally different now than it was in the past, things change, nations grow and people are generally more cautious about wars now. You gotta know that leaders aren't gonna up and alter their philosophy towards having wars just because the market is falling. A fundamental problem with this game, which I believe Alex is trying to do differently in StateKraft, is that everything is for the purpose of war. Adding an RP dimension, such as idk, an open "Olympic Games" where you pour resources in and whoever pours the most in wins some credits, might be a decent resource sink that is inconsequential to the existing mechanics.
Maybe introduce a permanent buy offer, like if there was an AI that you could always rely on to have a buy offer on food for 100 ppu, food would only ever be traded at above 100 ppu.
But yah, war is not the "only" answer to the market problem.