I was born and grew up close to the french border, in a region that was contested between France and Germany and often changed hands. I was lucky to be born after the french-german friendship started to take roots, but I'm well aware that my country and France used to be arch enemies and fought three devastating wars between 1870 and 1970, not to count the petty little border conflicts. I still remember the day that you could just cross the border without a passport check and I'm still amazed every time I cross that border, that the border post, the guards, everything, just disappeared and that the border is now essentially a sign just like I'd enter a city saying "Welcome to
France". People that were born elsewhere or later than me don't even recognize the spot any more where the border was.
To the contrast, my partner was born and raised close to the Belarussian border and that's still like I remember borders: Armed guards, passport check, fences, need a visa to cross. 20km of queue, 36hours of wait for trucks trying to pass the border.
_This_ is what the European Union achieved. It's still messy and there's a lot of things that go wrong and possibly that will never really change, because a union of such diverse people with such diverse and distinct history will never be able to figure out how to cater to all needs in a fair way, but the achievement of having no separating border between so many countries with different rules and regulations, it's just amazing and I cherish it every day and I'm deeply saddened every time I meet people that can't see it.
>People that were born elsewhere or later than me don't even recognize the spot any more where the border was.
Which is kind of a shame, because there are few things that make one feel as free as driving past the empty booths of an abandoned checkpoint without even slowing down.
The EU was born out of the EC, which was born out of the EEC, which was born out of ECSC (European Coal and Steel Community).
The entire concept of the EU is that a straightforward homogenous marketplace engenders trade which in turn engenders peace, as attacking your trading partners is rarely a beneficial move.
Nuclear weapons and MAD were extant before the EEC and throughout its existence, and have not played a role in the stability of Europe beyond having a common foe on the doorstep to the east.
Colonialism/imperialism most certainly has not ended. Many European nations have territories dotted around the globe, many of which are still highly contentious, and the US continues to act on moral principals which fall squarely out of the big book of empire-building.
The EU/EC/EEC has achieved plenty - but we humans are not accustomed to understanding accomplishments or progress which occurs on a timescale beyond our own limited lives.
Come on, that's a silly thing to say, everyone's empires were significantly dismantled after WW2.
It's easy not to fight when there's nothing to fight over and you've got a massive bear beating at the door.
I'm not claiming the EU's done nothing, I think it's made Europe richer, increased growth, etc., I'm claiming the EU had nothing to do with peace in Europe. Europe would still be at peace today with or without a common market. Especially given that the UK didn't join for 25 years and a bunch more in the 80s and then more recently. And the UK invaded Egypt with France before they were both in the EEC.
That was NATO and mutual fear and needing protection from US doing that, not the EU. It was simply being in club capitalism and being very scared of club communism.
And the world changed, become smaller. Which developed nations have gone to war with each other since WW2? No European country invaded Norway for it's oil. The UK is seriously talking about letting Scotland drift away without going to war in it. Territory's not the same as it was.
Again, my claim is that Europe would still be at peace today with or without a common market, there's literally been no reason to fight.
You know, we could discuss all day about the big russian bear which held Europe together, that there were no reasons to fight and so on. But let's just take a look at this article:
And there the reason for the ECSC, as stated by its "father" Robert Schuman:
-----
He declared his aim was to "make war not only unthinkable but materially impossible" which was to be achieved by regional integration, of which the ECSC was the first step. The Treaty would create a common market for coal and steel among its member states which served to neutralise competition between European nations over natural resources, particularly in the Ruhr.
----
So, would Germany have attacked other countries again without the ECSC? No one knows, because crystal balls are bugged again. But we know that the stated reason for the ECSC (and everything that followed) was the fear that Germany would do this. And this fear lead to the idea of making war against each other impossible. And that worked quite well so far.
So what, European Unification-ists will say anything, it doesn't mean it's grounded in reality.
It's simply a political ideal, and an incredibly out-dated one at that. And I believe it's as deluded as communism, it's simply not how humans work. We don't share cultures, we have different values. Other countries are splitting up in the world today, splitting into their ethnic groups, where the EU is bizarrely trying to combine them.
The EU hasn't been tested. It's not had a single test because for decades the pressure the Cold War forced co-operation, and after the cold war finished we had a massive economic bubble, meaning everyone was swimming in cash.
We've finally had the crash and it doesn't look all that swimmingly amazing or stable in the EU any more.
You think if fascists seized control of Greece they would magically be peaceful because they're in the EU?
That's a nice theory, but the real data doesn't back it up.
In reality, it's a delusion to believe that ethnicities and cultures can be divided by national borders. This hasn't ever worked except maybe on some islands. And not even in Great Britain, which consists of islands.
Even after the crash, Europe (and each and every of its members) is immensely more wealthy than after WWII, and still more wealthy than ever before.
Fascists did seize control of Greece several times, never under EU membership though. The EU did force Greece to get its affairs in order. But it sure wasn't pretty to watch...
But how does that differ to WWII? Sure, reparations, polish corridor (not a reason at all), rise of fascism - but those things happened in a Europe that had sworn it would never fight again at Versailles. LN failed impressively because it was oriented around arms control and security pacts, rather than trade agreements - it attempted to treat the symptoms, not the cause. NATO isn't dissimilar, but functions as the economic end of things is looked after by the EU.
Fundamentally, it's hard to either prove or disprove, as the only reference points we have are other similar historical contexts, but my money is on trade being a great enabler. Worked for the Romans, until they switched to military dominance (because they ended up with a plutarchy due to the traders (senators) getting richer, who ended up with private armies), at which point it all fell apart. Again, many other factors, and all of history is a great big murk from which we have to try to model what happens today.
The 'reason to fight' is the whole difference. In 1930ies, there were all kinds of practical reasons for European nations to win wars of conquest against their neighbours - that would bring them immediate practical and economic benefits, which would offset the costs of that military action unless it escalated to a world war. Especially after Versailles, there were many reasons to fight in Europe.
In 2000, however, there are no practical reasons for such wars (at least in Europe), as annexing a part of your neighbour would gain you little and hurt you a lot due to the trade impact.
> Which developed nations have gone to war with each other since WW2?
Which non-European developed countries have previously gone to war with each other as regularly as European nations?
Also compare the situation in Europe to that in e.g. east Asia with its rather curious barking over tiny islands or even eastern, non-EU Europe where an independent nation was just invaded.
> Which developed nations have gone to war with each other since WW2?
Yugoslavia on the one side and NATO on the other. Like, twice. (And those may have started as internal Yugoslav conflicts, but then, WW1 started as an internal Austro-Hungarian conflict, too.)
I think it's worth distinguishing between the implementation of the EU (which is .. buggy) and the concept (which is a great universal message of peace and brotherhood and prosperity, so powerful that you have non-EU countries and peoples begging to be admitted)
>Colonialism/imperialism most certainly has not ended. Many European nations have territories dotted around the globe, many of which are still highly contentious
Some of these territories are considered to be part of the European Union, resulting in the slightly amusing fact that part of South America (French Guiana) is in fact part of the EU!
For an example of how things can go wrong even in Europe, despite all of what you listed, just look at the Balkans.
I’m quite convinced that the EU and its predecessors were instrumental in keeping Western Europe very stable and very peaceful. The cold war helped, sure, but even 24 years after the end of that stability and peace aren‘t even threatened a little bit. Conflicts can and are routinely solved politically, not through any passive aggressive grandstanding that marks so many other international relationships. (I have always said that to judge supra-national institutions you have to look at how they deal with conflict, not how often they agree or how harmonious they sound when everyone has the same opinion. Those institutions exist to work constructively on solutions for conflicts and problems, that’s when you have to evaluate them. And there is nothing wrong with differences in opinion existing if institutions are in place to resolve that and find a compromise.)
Additionally the EU has been very profitable for very many European companies. Creating a common market (still imperfect and still more to profit companies than people, of course) has been a major advantage for everyone.
Well, he's technically right. The last European wars countries currently in the EU were involved in are the post-Yugoslavia wars (is there a name for them?). Prior to this, we have course the two world wars as the most well-known example of a cycle of destruction and butchery Europeans have displayed a particular taste for, often with exceptionally brutal results (eg, the Thirty Years' War).
I was specifically referring to the "couple of decades ago" part. Of course, there is a long list of power struggles, for instance in Italy, succession wars and the like.
