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Within European society (and perhaps beyond) there seems to be an unquestioned assumption, that the European Union has generated peace in Europe post 1945, which had seemed so unattainable in the past.
My question is, however, this the European Union provide the best, or a complete explanation for peace in Europe? I would suggest that there are at least three other explanations:
Total American/Soviet hegemony in Europe
Nuclear weapons
The end of the competition for hegemony between Germany and Russia
How is peace then best explained? I seems to be pivotal to the future development of Europe and the world to understand how security was forged!
Tito's Yugoslavia was a "European Union" on a smaller scale, and we all saw how that turned out. People of different cultures, different religions, different alphabets, all told that they were living in one country, with one economy, and could wander about at will and try to assimilate. After a few decades of that, they started torturing and killing each other on the basis of those differences. Outside forces had to come in and remove them from each other's throats. The "wrong people" living in their communities.
The EU is not really responsible for peace per se. Instead both the EU and the current period of pax are reactions to the devastating wars of the 21st century.
My understanding is that the EU is merely the Fourth Reich. Before anyone goes off the hilt we must remember while the Third Reich is reviled that the first and second were not. Bonus points for anyone who can name them.
So yes, Germany is behind the EU, the most powerful member of it, and since the days of Charlemagne has that area attempted to unite Europe. This has been a long time coming.
Also we have to remind ourselves in how government has evolved. We began with small tribes as the strongest government unit. Then the tribes had to lose a bit of their autonomy to form clans. Thus kingdoms arose and united the clans. Then nation states and empires. The EU is a supra-state, in time there will be one in Asia, another in the America (or two), and so forth. Then finally we will have a global government.
Yes, peace and security is always afforded and the given reason to form larger governmental units but war is always a constant. That is peace and war are always around, not taking turns, but living side by side, our peace means war there, and war here will bring peace, and so forth.
There is also other factors involved with globalization. See war is now imported so while we have peace now in Europe and America it is deceptive because we are still sending men to the front, it just happens that it is in another part of the globe, whereas before we fought neighbors or across seas but never in this manner. War is still occurring even as we enjoy peace, nothing has changed, nothing ever will but it will just occur in more larger theaters and involving more spheres whether they seem congruous or not.
We also are in an era of contained conflict in that we will allow Yugoslavia to dog it out before we intervene and insure that violence does not spill out of that area, of course some will view this as a method of effecting regime change in a given area, and not many will remember but Germany was not allowed to send her troops outside of her borders, the first time she did so, was in the former Yugoslavia. The Balkans have always been a thorn in Germany's side and now no longer, it has been contained, the day Milosevic was ousted Serbia lost her autonomy that she has fought for centuries, now she is part of the global empire which is still not complete but is being built one nation at a time.
Same with Saddam he was ousted mainly for disagreeing with the UN. So peace, or the appearance of, is maintained by business and globalization using brute but contained levels of force from civil unrest to foreign intervention.
When you say that there's been "peace" in Europe since 1945, you're ignoring the fact that there hasn't actually been a whole lot of it. Oh, sure, a World War had just concluded--but right on it's heels...Tito's Yugoslavia is one contradiction. There's also the violence that had erupted in Albania and Macedonia. And the Iron Curtain--I don't think the populations that were subjugated in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and (last but certainly not least) East Germany believed themselves to be living in peace.
Tito's Yugoslavia was a "European Union" on a smaller scale, and we all saw how that turned out. People of different cultures, different religions, different alphabets, all told that they were living in one country, with one economy, and could wander about at will and try to assimilate. After a few decades of that, they started torturing and killing each other on the basis of those differences. Outside forces had to come in and remove them from each other's throats. The "wrong people" living in their communities.
Do you think that the examples are really akin? Part of the point of the EU currently is to keep to mainly christian Europeans. Certainly in Western Europe, there is a fairly unified culture, do you think, perhaps that it just expanded too far east and south?
[quote=Fred314X;16356742]"When you say that there's been "peace" in Europe since 1945, you're ignoring the fact that there hasn't actually been a whole lot of it. "
I suppose that, if one were to claim that the EU secured peace then it is perhaps only fair to consider the area covered by it. I suppose that also brings the date forward to the 1960s rather than the 1940s!
"My understanding is that the EU is merely the Fourth Reich."
I'm not quite sure of the logic of that, might you elaborate?
"So yes, Germany is behind the EU,"
Well, France, in point of fact.
"the most powerful member of it,"
Certainly on of them: Germany, France, UK
"We began with small tribes as the strongest government unit. Then the tribes had to lose a bit of their autonomy to form clans. "
It might be interesting to consider the mechanism behind this, if weapons development is the main mechanism then we may well meet a cut-off point.
"Thus kingdoms arose and united the clans. Then nation states and empires. "
Well, a modest sequential error as empires existed before nation states
The EU is a supra-state, in time there will be one in Asia, another in the America (or two), and so forth. Then finally we will have a global government.
Although a global government is possible, I'm not exactly sure that the logic of it holds together as inevitable change. There's been as much movement away from bigger units as there has towards in after all..
"Same with Saddam he was ousted mainly for disagreeing with the UN."
Given that the UN voted against a war with him, that seems an odd statement..
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