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[Vikarion]

Vikarion, the US and Russia aren't supposedly friends. Germany and the US is another story. With the words of Obama who told the German audience: peace and progress "require allies who will listen to each other, learn from each other and, most of all, trust each other."

Guess he meant 'listen to each other' and 'learn from each other' not the way a German would understand 'trust each other'.

Heh, nice one.

Yes, it does make it a little more awkward when the person you are spying to is allied to you. But, on the other hand, it's also not uncommon. Consider the fact that Israel, whose biggest ally is the U.S., still loves to spy on us.

[Silas Vitalia]

German intelligence has been more than happy to piggyback on our NSA tech for spying on their own citizens and giving us assistance, so these latest 'revelations' shouldn't surprise anyone in the slightest.   


One thing I can guarantee is that none of us know the tiniest tip of the iceberg about what is actually going on and whom is involved. 

These sorts of public intelligence purgings are far more often about being well timed politics than any new information or revelations. 

Realpolitik time, the US has a substantial interest in how Germany placates or cozies up to Russia.  It's harder for the US to influence the Russian oil market to our benefit when Western Europe remains their largest and most dedicated customer, afraid to bite the hand that feeds (and warms) them.  Since most of the countries Russia is 'selling' its gas to aren't going to piss them off, it's been harder for the US to move them on any number of issues.  Listening to every little thing the Germans are up to makes sense to get a better handle on the situation. 


Public 'outrage' over any of this from the political establishment borders on the comical.

[Silas Vitalia]

Oh and I had to add:

ALL UR SECRETZ R BELONG TO US

 

We will use this intelligence to discover how to make Americans give a shit about soccer and how to assemble a winning squad that shows up to more than ten minutes of a game.   

[Lyn Farel]

To expand a bit more, and that is exactly as Orange said, hypothesis, and what I feel.

Firstly, while the US empire has lost some ground on the material world past Vietnam, Afghanistan, Irak, Sommalia, etc, they still conserve their full supremacy in the immaterial one for the simple reason that they literally created it (being the world of information, virtual data, etc), as the Snowden case showed again.

Not only with the transatlantic treaty, the european countries have lost since long their power and supremacy on material matters, seem to have lost most notions of power, except maybe Germany that might have actually understood what are the stakes, and how power can be projected through economic matters. In France, the last one still aware of that was De Gaulle, and it ended up in 1969.

We have european elections without any debates, where everyone seems happy not to have one, where everyone seems disinterested. We prefer to talk about football teams and send people to circus games rather than speak about how people will actually feed and live in the coming years. When it has come to that level of democracy, it seems we have lost our dignity to state a thought and take actual international positions when it comes to the american umbrella.

And we are losing it the same way in the immaterial world with the total absence of debate and reflexion following the Snowden case. And the only condition for that to happen is that Europe actually takes its future into consideration, and where cutting the link with the USA so that Europeans actually recognize themselves in their own identity and that they are the actual masters of their economic, political, cultural and religious future, instead of depending of a declining empire like the US.

And I think that only Germany currently, even if very timidly, is vaguely aware of that, and that's what might be behind their current doings.

I'm not saying this in a negative or positive judgement of value regarding relationships with America, but that Europe has lost all will to actually weigh internationally for long and stand as equals rather than into pure submission everytime.

[Silas Vitalia]

I'm not saying this in a negative or positive judgement of value regarding relationships with America, but that Europe has lost all will to actually weigh internationally for long and stand as equals rather than into pure submission everytime.

Very good points Lyn.  I'm not European but I have to imagine the Western Europeans rightly still have some issues and hesitancy with having "weight" internationally considering the last few world wars / colonialism they spearheaded. 

Perhaps easier for them to assign responsibility (and blame) to the US for many of these things.

It's a difficult position for Europe, on the one hand they might be temped to be interested in taking more direct control of their security apparatus/military/etc, but on the other hand their public seems to have less than zero interest in either paying for or participating in military adventures.

It's also an interesting position for them to be in, they can champion all sorts of anti war/ diplomatic solutions while at the same time relying on the US for military security blanket.

There are plenty in America who would like nothing more than to completely withdraw to our continent and let the rest of the world solve their own problems, to cease providing military buffers and regional security.  Some of these points are very valid.

But on the other hand power abhors a vacuum. If we didn't have a bunch of aircraft carriers and military bases in the Pacific, the Japanese / S Koreans / N Koreans / Chinese / Taiwanese would 100% be in a military arms race with disastrous consequences. 

Eastern Europe would look much, much different right now if NATO were to dissolve and Russia were left to act however it pleased.  It would probably not take long at all before Germany and the rest of Europe re-armed themselves and we'll be right back to the last 50 times that the Europeans killed a few million people on each other's doorsteps.

[Nicoletta Mithra]

Silas, I think you US people have your very own view on things, mostly shaped by the fact that you never had to experience any real wars obn your own soil. I'm quite sure that the situation in Europe at large and easter Europe in particular doesn't depend as much on the US involvement as you make it sound there.

Also, I don't think at all that Europe has lost its will to 'weigh internationally', I think that it rather has a more mature approach to international politics than the US, who apparently still think that all problems can be solved by military intervention, when history showed that this isn't the case. Also, Europe doesn't solve internal problems by ignoring them and focusing on external power projection, like the US seems to do in my opinion. And it's an open secret that the US has at least as many internal peoblems as Europe.

I'm quite happy that by US standards, I live in a communist paradise.

All that said, if the US has a vested interest in Germany not 'cozying up' with Russia, then they do a damn fine job with their dilletant spying to alienate Germany from themselves. I don't see how there is a commensurate risk/benefit ratio given the way how incompetent the US is in it's damage control, if not already the intelligence gathering.

[Lyn Farel]

Speaking about post world wars, which left a definite scar in European history (mostly WW2, WW1 was just a bloodier variant and conclusion of the war of 1870), the result of that war probably had already a great impact on the already completely isolationist USA before they were provoked by Japan into the war, was nothing compared to what most western Europe got out of it. It may have brought beneficial ideals depending on the eye of the beholder - but for me it's definitely beneficial - ideals that despise war more than ever and look to alternative, more modern and enlightened society ideals (which could be part of post modern ideologies part of the global western ideological spearhead) , but it also brought a complete refusal to look conflict right up in the eyes, playing instead the ostriches when the inevitable happens. Current society absolutely despises conflict, especially in Western Europe, and that also means that when it comes to project power and actually understand that it's precisely because of the current american power supremacy that we live the lives we have, being an elite that is nothing but a minority in a world still full of people and countries opposing post modernism, be it traditional nationalists like Putin or fundamentalist nutjobs, I can safely say that we still reap more profit than anyone else. And that's precisely thanks to western power remaining the supremacy in the world, now threatened by the chinese as well as other powers.

I also don't think that participating in military adventures is the direct defining vector of Power anymore. That's still part of it, but most of it now resides in economic and memetic/information/media warfare (aka the material vs the immaterial worlds). I mean, even in the case of France we still take part in a lot of conflicts, mostly in Africa, and that is done very quietly and professionally where nobody ever talks about it, except when it is for American involvement like in Lybia, or recently in Mali because terrorist islamic fundamentalists are involved (and suddenly it becomes all over the media). It's still a feeble will to project power to defend our own interests and pillage Africa for what's still there (raw resources like Areva mines and also cultural influence, to the contrary of all old english colonies that didn't work the same way at all). That's not that people do not want that we go to war, they shrug it off and do not really care. It's the job of the military and they do it, but it has become so disconnected that well... They just started to call for a return of the troops sent in Afghanistan because that has never been considered "our" war and started to seem pointless. There is a huge distrust in America, and I bet that most people do not like the US very much, mostly out of prejudice I believe. Not getting involved in the second war in Irak was probably the most clever move we did, and at the same time, was disastrous on our capacity to project power as well and comforted us in the current position we hold as europeans. But that's just military, stuck up in old doctrines instead of focusing where the current power really lies (economy, influence, and information).

But the real question is why people do not like the US in the world ? It was not the case before Vietnam, when their storytelling machine choked and knelt a bit before going full speed again. It's a question of double standards, when always presented as the keeper of freedom, human rights and democracy, and still getting more and more disconnected with the ideals it continues to project with failures like Irak, and others. USA are often viewed where I live as the biggest hypocrites in the world, and i'm pretty sure that trend takes its roots in a certain discontinuity between the surgarcoat, and what really lies under.

[Morwen Lagann]

the fact that you never had to experience any real wars obn your own soil.

You may wish to re-phrase this statement, as it is patently false.

[orange]

the fact that you never had to experience any real wars obn your own soil.

You may wish to re-phrase this statement, as it is patently false.

British burn Washington in 1814 (taking the capital of a dispersed nation is not as effective as doing against a more consolidated nation)

1860-1865 was a bitch of war. (Death count: ~625,000 Americans.)

[Katrina Oniseki]

I think you asked a bunch of Americans how we feel about spying on your country, and did not like the answer.

I'm sorry, but we as normal citizens are more concerned with those internal problems you've hinted at. We really don't care that your country got spied on. We care that we're getting spied on, by our own government.

Those in this thread who have provided justifications for it were probably trying to give you a more satisfying answer for debate that you may have been seeking - but I doubt they worry half as much about Germany being friendly with Russia as they do about the NSA tapping their emails and mobile data without warrant.

[Vikarion]

For what it's worth, I'm one American, of at least some, who very much wishes that we would sever all alliances and military cooperation with Europe and the Middle East. Contrary to popular belief, we are a net exporter of oil, and quite frankly, there's almost certainly nothing Western Europe or Eastern Europe has that would be worth (economically, to the United States) going to war with Russia or China over.

As for if I'm concerned about the NSA, the CIA, or any other American agency spying on you...well, no. I don't want them spying on me - we have a right to privacy here. But I don't expect other countries to stop spying on us, and I don't consider it unusual. If you think that your country is the special snowflake that should be exempt from realpolitik, that's wonderful for you, but it does nothing for anyone else.

That said, spying does not indicate ill intent. It often indicates a worry about another's intent. In the case of Germany, that's historically warranted, as with many other European countries. For all that the U.S. gets shit on, and sometimes deservedly so, it's not like it has some sort of patent on occasionally deciding to go gallivanting off on some truly nutty adventure.

[Nicoletta Mithra]

Katrina, it's not that I don't like what I percieve as answers given to to how people feel about US spying on Germany. E.g. I have nothing against the answer at all which you sketch there. To me it's quite interesting to hear that USAmerican citizens apparently worry more about the NSA tapping into their private stuff than international politics. And I greatly appreciate answers to that or similar effect.

What seems quite interesting to me is the difference in mentality there. I'm quite sure that a lot of Germans would think that it is wrong for German intelligence agencies to spy on allied contries. It's not like the NSA merely spied on our goverment. We have a right to privacy over here as well and the Germans I know of are as indignated that the NSA seems to ignore that right in the US as they don't like that they're ignoring it here. In 'the German mind' they should respect the right to privacy in general, regardless of location. There seems to be a difference in mentality there between USAmericans and Germans that seems to me to explain why USAmericans don't seem to understand the outrage of the German side. And by the way, I don't think that we're morons because of that. It's not that we don't think that it does happen, but rather that it shouldn't happen. Maybe Germans see a more stark contrast between what is and what should be and also place more value on the latter than people in the US? Just as a thought to explain the differences in view, adding to the past in regard to spying as covered in the BBC news thingy I linked.

So, no problem with the answers in that regard, it's not that I expect USAmericans to care and am grumpy if they don't. Rather the answers in that regard were interesting in my opinion and gave me food for thought. Thanks for that!


But then I get a bit agitated if people tell me I'm supposed to be thankful that the US is spying on the German government and me, because else the Europeans would slaughter one another. Maybe instead of reacting to those posts, I should've rather thanked the people that made all the other posts - which were in the majority in my eyes - that were enlightening on how you people see the issue I was interested to hear opinions about.

So, what I really take issue with was imho a trajectory off topic. Still, I want to say a few things to that off-topic trajectory.

As to my comment that the US had never to experience a real war on their own soil:
What I meant is that the US basically never had to experience foreign forces invading them in a ground war covering any area covering a substantial part of an average US member state.

The british burned Washington, but the War of 1812 was laregely confined to a) the Atlantic ocean, b) Canadian territories and the Great Lakes and c) the Gulf coast.There were inland raids along rivers, but those were aimed at cities along them and didn't take the form of foreign forces occupying any larger patches of land, afaik.

The American Civil War didn't see any foreign forces invade the US. Doesn't mean it wasn't bad, true. But it's different from foreign forces invading you in a ground war.

So, the only war that comes to my mind where US troops had to deal with foreign troops in a ground war covering large quantities of area is the American Revolutionary War and that wasn't foreign troops invading the US either, strictly speaking.

If I look at Europe, there have been a lot more wars with foreign forces invading in ground war even since the formation of the US.

Now, this is not to say that the US is any worse than the EU for that reason and in fact I think it's quite a good thing if one doesn't have frequently foreign forces invading nations in large scale gound war. Still, that Europe has a history of such stretching up to at least the generation of my grandparents lead to quite a different view on wars in Europe than the US and I think that part of why Europeans see war quite different from USAmericans.

So, the point I really want to make is: Europeans have a quite different history in regard to the wars they had to experience, how those were conducted in their contries, the area of their contries which was covered by those wars and thus how much they were effected by said wars from antiquity onwards to modern times. This goes hand in hand with the US being quite a young nation compared to European nations which have unbroken or broken histories stretching back into late antiquity.

This history translates to another way to deal with wars and that Europeans are more hesitant to project power through armed conflict than the US is quite a lot informed by that history and experiences and not so much - in my opinion - a loss of will to 'weigh in internationally'. For example the EU/its member states pour a lot more money into ODA then the US. If we had no will to weigh in internationally, I'm sure we wouldn't put that much money in there. Europe - and especially Germany just prefers other instruments than waging war.

And I'm quite sure that those are at least as conducive to peaceful Europe as the US threat of military intervention.

[orange]

As to my comment that the US had never to experience a real war on their own soil:
What I meant is that the US basically never had to experience foreign forces invading them in a ground war covering any area covering a substantial part of an average US member state.

The british burned Washington, but the War of 1812 was laregely confined to a) the Atlantic ocean, b) Canadian territories and the Great Lakes and c) the Gulf coast.There were inland raids along rivers, but those were aimed at cities along them and didn't take the form of foreign forces occupying any larger patches of land, afaik.

The American Civil War didn't see any foreign forces invade the US. Doesn't mean it wasn't bad, true. But it's different from foreign forces invading you in a ground war.

So, the only war that comes to my mind where US troops had to deal with foreign troops in a ground war covering large quantities of area is the American Revolutionary War and that wasn't foreign troops invading the US either, strictly speaking.

Now, if I look at Europe, there have been a lot more wars with foreign forces invading in ground war even since the formation of the US.

Now, this is not to say that the US is any worse than the EU for that reason and in fact I think it's quite a good thing if one doesn't have frequently foreign forces invading nations in large scale gound war. Still, that Europe has a history of such stretching up to at least the generation of my grandparents lead to quite a different view on wars in Europe than the US and I think that part of that is that Europeans see war quite different from USAmericans.

...

And I'm quite sure that those are at least as conducive to peaceful Europe as the US threat of military intervention.

First off, I understand your point.  However, I think it is important to touch upon the points you brought up above.

Working backwards through time:

To my great-great-grandparents, the Union Army of the Potomac was a foreign invasion.  My great-grandparent's would have disapproved of me marrying a woman who grew-up in the North and whose ancestors were from the area of New York City.  The reason General Lee was not commanding the Army of the Potomac (and probably ending the war much quicker), was because he considered himself a Virginian more than an American.  The idea of being American before Texan, New Yorker, Virginian, Ohioan, etc is a post-Civil War idea.

In the War of 1812, the United States, especially the majority of cities, were/are on the Atlantic seaboard and Gulf Coast.  Your description essentially covers the entirety of the populated United States at the time and a huge chuck of it today.  Relatively few people lived/lives in the area between the Mississippi River and Rocky Mountains (and today to the Pacific Coast).  Taking Washington, DC means the Philadelphia and New York were probably vulnerable.

To not consider the British army from 1775 to 1781 a foreign army in the 13 American colonies ignores that a many of the colonists ancestors had arrived from Britain (and elsewhere) in the mid-1600s, a hundred years and a few generations separated them from being truly British.

Based on that logic, one might consider many of the wars in Europe over time to not be foreign invasions, but cousins fighting over who had the right to grand-father's land.  For example, the Hundred Years War between England and France might be described as a war between various factions of Frankish nobility using whatever men they could call upon, whether they were Angle, Saxon, Norman, Frankish, Celtic, or otherwise.

[Silas Vitalia]

Some good stuff here!

Mithra, how do you feel about your own intelligence agency cooperating with our NSA and using our sneaky tools to spy on your own citizens?  I feel it is a case of acting angry on one side of the mouth while the other is very happy to borrow our software to spy internally? 

This isn't a pointing a finger contest I just haven't seen this brought up in the discussion yet.


Regarding power vacuum's and EU/rest of the world, we might just have to disagree.   Of course the US is not going to go to a war in Europe over Ukraine, but we are the only ones holding any cards with much weight in being able to organize and motivate economic sanctions against Russia?  We don't need to buy any of their oil.  EU will absolutely cave to Putin and let him steamroll as he pleases for fear he will turn off the spigot. 

I am not in a glass house throwing stones; the US track record recently has been particularly bad in the Middle East, and we've got plenty of mis-steps over the last 150 years or so of being on the world stage, and make plenty of mistakes.  Our legacy of violence especially in central and south america during the cold war is complicated and difficult; much of the current problems in those countries stems from our willingness to support anyone who was anti-communist, however awful they might be.  An awful calculation to make but I'd like to think understand the stakes of the US not allowing another Cuba situation on it's geopolitical doorstep again.

That being said our record of violence and economic exploitation is still quite a bit behind you folks.  Give us a few hundred years perhaps we will catch up at this rate, though  


But if the US recently is guilty of being too quick to overreact with military force then you folks can also be too guilty recently of standing idly by and letting too much happen.   

I honestly have no doubt that without an overarching security apparatus in Europe it would take little time before many of those countries start arming themselves and killing each other for all the usual reasons.  I absolutely do not buy the European 'we are so peaceful now and we abhor war' concept.   Plenty of your countries sell many many weapons to just as many awful people and governments, and are perfectly happy (as are American companies) to make money selling weapons to black and brown people to kill each other in Africa and the Middle East.  It's also only been 70 years since the last time you people dragged the world into misery, since the last time you all did that, before the previous time you all did that, etc, etc and there probably only hasn't been another one because there was little left and people with larger guns on all sides making sure you didn't.

Anyway I really do love Germans and you all won a fantastic world cup final today

[Lyn Farel]

For what it's worth, I'm one American, of at least some, who very much wishes that we would sever all alliances and military cooperation with Europe and the Middle East. Contrary to popular belief, we are a net exporter of oil, and quite frankly, there's almost certainly nothing Western Europe or Eastern Europe has that would be worth (economically, to the United States) going to war with Russia or China over.

It makes perfect sense for the US to try and force things like that transatlantic treaty upon Europe, at the contrary. It's not only about raw resources that the USA probably have in more quantity than Europe. Still from the lens of power, it's economic warfare at its finest, and besides the fact that this thing is really pulled behind by huge corporate interests that want better tools to sue countries whenever they want, and thus inverting the balance of power (law serves the corp instead of the state, see how tobacco industry already sue countries that pass restricting laws on smoking, and win huge sums of money, one example among many), Europe in that case has very little to earn out of this deal. It's an american deal made for America and to re assert America control over Europe.

As new challenging powers emerge around the world, the US know that they have to keep most of their assets on their side. Before the 2000s, it was unthinkable that China and others would someday grow so fast and threaten US supremacy. The US invested colossal sums of money in China and if one of both economies collapses, the other one will follow instantly considering how intricate both have become. Now though, powers have emerged, and when the US let Europe and Atlantic trade alone for a while, they are now intensely focusing on it, and not only because of :russiaineurope:. The EU can also become a potential challenger, or at least a huge bloc not under their control that also threatens them directly on their field : immaterial world.

Which tends to make me think that's actually the US that need Europe more than the contrary. For its corporations. We are already seeing it here in France where General Electric tried to buy out one of our high tech energy and transport companies (Alstom). That's technological pillaging of national technological assets at its finest (yeah, the chinese are not the only ones to do that), and we were almost dumb enough to let it happen (they finally just sold the energy branch only). And with that in mind, they constantly try to lower Europe barriers (that are already dramatically low) where they of course have huge protectionist policies on their soil. And Europe is dumb enough to swallow.

This history translates to another way to deal with wars and that Europeans are more hesitant to project power through armed conflict than the US is quite a lot informed by that history and experiences and not so much - in my opinion - a loss of will to 'weigh in internationally'. For example the EU/its member states pour a lot more money into ODA then the US. If we had no will to weigh in internationally, I'm sure we wouldn't put that much money in there. Europe - and especially Germany just prefers other instruments than waging war.

That's because you live in Germany. As I said above, Germany may be the only remaining country that understood what is at stake. Everywhere else, even if there is of course a few things going that way here and there, it's total apathy.

As to my comment that the US had never to experience a real war on their own soil:
What I meant is that the US basically never had to experience foreign forces invading them in a ground war covering any area covering a substantial part of an average US member state.

The british burned Washington, but the War of 1812 was laregely confined to a) the Atlantic ocean, b) Canadian territories and the Great Lakes and c) the Gulf coast.There were inland raids along rivers, but those were aimed at cities along them and didn't take the form of foreign forces occupying any larger patches of land, afaik.

The American Civil War didn't see any foreign forces invade the US. Doesn't mean it wasn't bad, true. But it's different from foreign forces invading you in a ground war.

So, the only war that comes to my mind where US troops had to deal with foreign troops in a ground war covering large quantities of area is the American Revolutionary War and that wasn't foreign troops invading the US either, strictly speaking.

Now, if I look at Europe, there have been a lot more wars with foreign forces invading in ground war even since the formation of the US.

Now, this is not to say that the US is any worse than the EU for that reason and in fact I think it's quite a good thing if one doesn't have frequently foreign forces invading nations in large scale gound war. Still, that Europe has a history of such stretching up to at least the generation of my grandparents lead to quite a different view on wars in Europe than the US and I think that part of that is that Europeans see war quite different from USAmericans.

...

And I'm quite sure that those are at least as conducive to peaceful Europe as the US threat of military intervention.

First off, I understand your point.  However, I think it is important to touch upon the points you brought up above.

Working backwards through time:

To my great-great-grandparents, the Union Army of the Potomac was a foreign invasion.  My great-grandparent's would have disapproved of me marrying a woman who grew-up in the North and whose ancestors were from the area of New York City.  The reason General Lee was not commanding the Army of the Potomac (and probably ending the war much quicker), was because he considered himself a Virginian more than an American.  The idea of being American before Texan, New Yorker, Virginian, Ohioan, etc is a post-Civil War idea.

In the War of 1812, the United States, especially the majority of cities, were/are on the Atlantic seaboard and Gulf Coast.  Your description essentially covers the entirety of the populated United States at the time and a huge chuck of it today.  Relatively few people lived/lives in the area between the Mississippi River and Rocky Mountains (and today to the Pacific Coast).  Taking Washington, DC means the Philadelphia and New York were probably vulnerable.

To not consider the British army from 1775 to 1781 a foreign army in the 13 American colonies ignores that a many of the colonists ancestors had arrived from Britain (and elsewhere) in the mid-1600s, a hundred years and a few generations separated them from being truly British.

Based on that logic, one might consider many of the wars in Europe over time to not be foreign invasions, but cousins fighting over who had the right to grand-father's land.  For example, the Hundred Years War between England and France might be described as a war between various factions of Frankish nobility using whatever men they could call upon, whether they were Angle, Saxon, Norman, Frankish, Celtic, or otherwise.

That's a good point. Even at some point half of North America was french colonies, which makes me think that they were probably very foreign to each other at that time.

Regarding power vacuum's and EU/rest of the world, we might just have to disagree.   Of course the US is not going to go to a war in Europe over Ukraine, but we are the only ones holding any cards with much weight in being able to organize and motivate economic sanctions against Russia?  We don't need to buy any of their oil.  EU will absolutely cave to Putin and let him steamroll as he pleases for fear he will turn off the spigot. 

Well, yes, but Europe could also buy from countries like middle east, and... Iran. Which would piss the US to no end. And would be, of course, more costly. That's also why there is a huge "pipeline war" in the region of Baku and around (Turkey) where Russia constantly try to rerout and control all pipelines, even those that are not located in Russia, through deals and other "coercicion" (the word is maybe too strong and biased), so that they can keep their trade over Europe.

Ukraine might also enter in that category of conflict on some points.

I honestly have no doubt that without an overarching security apparatus in Europe it would take little time before many of those countries start arming themselves and killing each other for all the usual reasons.  I absolutely do not buy the European 'we are so peaceful now and we abhor war' concept.   Plenty of your countries sell many many weapons to just as many awful people and governments, and are perfectly happy (as are American companies) to make money selling weapons to black and brown people to kill each other in Africa and the Middle East.  It's also only been 70 years since the last time you people dragged the world into misery, since the last time you all did that, before the previous time you all did that, etc, etc and there probably only hasn't been another one because there was little left and people with larger guns on all sides making sure you didn't.

Honestly you should see Europe from the inside. It's not that they are all lovey dovey and abhor war (which couldn't be furthest from the truth) but that they learned to live together since past WW2 and all share more or less the same general ideals and way of life. We can say whatever we want about the EU, but considering how open the Shengen space has become and how everyone can move freely everywhere, how students move between countries like nothing else, how those countries interact and speak to each other, we may not be a Federation, but it's not that far in the spirit already.

I wouldn't think they would start again to kill each other, no. Unless there is some kind of apocalyptic event where it becomes free for all or something (global warming ? resource scarcity ?)... Or unless this new trend of anti EU nationalists rising everywhere actually bears its fruit someday...

Even for the newest countries of East Europe which may not share the same values and way of life yet, I have a hard time to see them wardecing western Europe tbh...