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[Silas Vitalia]

Good points again Lyn!

It just sometimes feels from this side of the Atlantic, and perhaps not understanding the ethnic histories and complexities, that many european countries do not handle immigrants/assimilation/ethnic tension very well.   We have the perhaps uninformed opinion that every ten or twenty years one Balkan country is exploding civilians in another one for being the wrong religion, or that the Italians are sending back boatloads of refugees to drown, or the French and Germans and Nordic countries can be terribly cruel to Mediterranean and African immigrants and refugees, along with what would appear from here to be far-right nationalist parties getting legislative seats in many countries?

Granted we are currently setting an awful example on our own Southern border     , but we've overall got a pretty good history of 'melting pot' culture....or at least only persecuting each minority for a few generations until a new racial group replaces them...  :/ 

Anyway, love the topic and thread

[Nicoletta Mithra]

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.

Well, thank you for the input there. Still, I think that the US wars 1861 to 1865 had quite a different impact on the collective subconscious of the people in the US than wars in Europe - which certainly were largely cousins fighting over their grandfather's land, viewed in one way. The war of 1861 to 1865 came to be known as the American Civil War after all and as it became cast in historiography it wasn't understood or retold as a war of differing American nations at all, but as a civil war in which no foreign powers intervened.

All that said, North Americans aren't used to war on their continent nowadays, I feel. Europeans are to this day. So not only is WW II something that had a more direct effect on Europeans recently, but it's also the fact that there's no generation since then that didn't see war in (eastern) Europe since then.

So I think even if I take your fair comments into consideration the historical experiences with war are different in Europe and the US and they explain a difference in outlook in regard to what war can and does achieve.

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.

I feel as indignated about that as any other German, really. The German intelligence agencies shouldn't be allowed to spy on German citizens and honestly I'm unhappy with our Government in so far as it seems to have a problem with the US spying on them, but not so much on us citizens. Maybe you don't hear about that, but there's a broad movement in Germany opposing that our state spies on us either directly or through the US. In fact Germans are very sensitive and easily agitated in regard to these topics for historical reasons.

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.

While I said that Europeans are used to war on their continent even nowadays, it's on the other hand a very important factor that the EU has been a force for peace and stability inside it's boarders - and it is arguably providing an overarching security apperatus even without the US. Historically speaking the EU is quite the exceptional thing in European history and the member states of the EU are aware of this an cherish the prosperity and peace it brings a lot. (This in addition toe the european spirit that many of the europeans citizens hold up, which lyn described.) I think it's quite out of question that the EU will be warring amongst itself. And if it collapses it's certainly not because of the US retreating from the 'European arena'. Quite to the contrary I think that if the US would step back there it would rather strengthen the EU. If the EU gets into trouble, then it's in my opinion because Germany tries to strongman the other members into following it's lead.

That said, Germany is not, in my opinion, the only country determined to weigh in internationally.Germany always had a peculiar status as a bridge between the European east and west, which oftentimes meant it tried to play both sides - sometimes quite successfully, sometimes with disastrous results. I think that Germany nowadays steers back towards this politics of playing both sides is a direct result of it feeling that the US treat 'us' increasingly like a far away country under their Empire's sway. But I wouldn't say that one should mistake that for Germany being any more determined to weigh in internationally than other European countries. In fact in terms of ODA France is in the lead in Europe and - not last because of their colonial past - both GB and France are quite involved internationally in my perception.  The Nordic countries are the most generous contries in regard to ODA measured by % of GNI (and even Greece was only 0.02% below the US in 2009 in that regrad).

And I really think that you've got quite an outsiders view of Europe there, Silas. At least I can tell you that while I don't think that refugees are treated as good here as they should and there are many problems with how they are treated, they do have it much better here than the socially underprveleged in the US - at least for Germany and Norway I can say that with certainty as I just participated in an EU program that's -amongst other things- taking a look at that system. You see German citizens with Turkish, Italian, Greek, etc.pp. background on the streets here every day. I don't think that it's worse here than in the US which have certainly more troubles than merely a little prosecution of minorities. Germany was a 'melting pot' of cultures since late antiquity with slavic and germanic tribes, italo-romans etc. intermingling all the time. Being a melting pot culture doesn't mean there aren't tensions in the melting process, though. On the contrary, it - historically speaking - always comes with identity struggles as new influences come to the old ones. I think in the US are just as many people worrying about the 'white Character' of the population in face of hispanic immigration as there are Germans worrying that immigrants 'take their jobs'.

Also, I have the impression that many 'far-right nationalist parties' here in Europe are not that far right if you weigh them by US standards in policies. Like here in Germany you are far-right if you're for something like the US Border Protection, Anti-terrorism and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005.

P.S.:

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

Well, I do love Americans as well. And thanks for the congratulations on the world cup, though I think the world cup final wasn't such a fantastic game. It was tense and good, but the viewing pleasure wasn't that of an interesting 3:2 game with turns and goals on both sides. ^^

[Silas Vitalia]

Speaking of the cup, Merkel was sitting awfully close to Putin

Good points Mithra, I really do enjoy hearing about these things from people overseas.  Perceptions can so often be wrong based on not good information.

I think my overall point was we all have a lot of work to on all of these issues to live up to any of our supposed ideals 

I'm a minority and my father's family were Cuban refugees fleeing the Castro regime in the 1960's, so I do sometimes have a more optimistic view on immigration here and the opportunities possible than the evidence lately might support.  Social mobility used to be one of our country's main selling points, and was a real thing that was possible here before the Oligarchy took complete control :/

*EDIT* getting off topic, will discontinue this line of conversation
 

[Nmaro Makari]

Two points.

First, allies always conduct intelligence operations in each other's territory, with or without the hosts knowledge.

Second, there is a difference between that kind of work, and the kind of work which involves the host enacting a counter-espionage operation. That sort of work suggests serious transgressions against the interests of the host country.

Also, third semi-point, I'm not sure most people seriously consider the reverse scenario, if German agents were operating and being arrested in the US.

[Desiderya]

Silas, can you clarify what you mean by 'the French and Germans and Nordic countries can be terribly cruel to Mediterranean and African immigrants and refugees".

Italy sending refugees to drown might also be pushing it a bit.

[Silas Vitalia]

Silas, can you clarify what you mean by 'the French and Germans and Nordic countries can be terribly cruel to Mediterranean and African immigrants and refugees".

Italy sending refugees to drown might also be pushing it a bit.

Not pushing it, although I don't have many more specific examples on hand at the moment.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/no-welcome-for-refugees-as-italy-turns-boat-away-2242923.html

At the office, but will try and be more specific regarding african/middle-eastern refugees into Europe shortly.

Don't take it personally though, we have more than enough crazy anti-immigrant abhorrent behavior on the US border to make us all embarrassed.

EDIT:  A few quick links, although I have not vetted these articles:

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2014/05/26/euroskeptic-anti-immigrant-parties-make-big-gains-in-european-union-elections/

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2014/03/31/europe-anti-immigration/5706575/

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/sep/24/sweden-immigration-far-right-asylum

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/significance-swiss-immigration-limits/

http://www.ipsnews.net/2013/03/european-commission-bankrolls-anti-immigrant-policies/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ahmed-moor/europes-anti-muslim-racis_b_565651.html

[Lyn Farel]

Good points again Lyn!

It just sometimes feels from this side of the Atlantic, and perhaps not understanding the ethnic histories and complexities, that many european countries do not handle immigrants/assimilation/ethnic tension very well.   We have the perhaps uninformed opinion that every ten or twenty years one Balkan country is exploding civilians in another one for being the wrong religion, or that the Italians are sending back boatloads of refugees to drown, or the French and Germans and Nordic countries can be terribly cruel to Mediterranean and African immigrants and refugees, along with what would appear from here to be far-right nationalist parties getting legislative seats in many countries?

Granted we are currently setting an awful example on our own Southern border     , but we've overall got a pretty good history of 'melting pot' culture....or at least only persecuting each minority for a few generations until a new racial group replaces them...  :/ 

Anyway, love the topic and thread

Well, if you speak about non EU countries in Europe (including Turkey), that's true that it might be a little different then. There was war in the balkans not so long ago, and even though it has settled now, I wouldn't believe that everything is fine and tensions vanished, but to me that's mostly local, internal conflict, at best. Also, Croatia entered the EU the last year, and other countries are still applying (like Bulgaria iirc ?) so... Although yes, Turkey, which may be a member of NATO and being a big player, at least militarily, in Europe, might still see its application to the EU delayed a lot considering the recent events... lol.

Most countries do not handle immigration very well. They can do it for a tiny bit when it's voluntarily opened to immigrants, like it was in the 60-70s, but now... You have to understand that the Mediterranean sea is somewhat similar to the border between the US and Mexico, and currently more than ever. The spanish enclave in North Africa is literally assaulted by refugees and immigrants from all Africa. They recently built 3 more walls and increased them from 3m to 9m heigh. Italy has been calling for help at the EU parliament for months now because they just admitted that it has got completely out of their control and are just overwhelmed. And most EU countries play the ostriches for now because they either are part of the south countries, that are the ones witnessing the crisis at its fullest and so have other things to deal with (like their own immigrants), or because they don't really care, like France and Germany which are supposed to be the pillars of the EU. And i'm not even speaking about the UK that doesn't care much for anything else except that them too have to deal with a fuckload of immigrants. Then you have also immigration in Greece, a country that is completely bankrupted, and that is seeing massive influx of refugees from Syria coming through either the Aegea sea, where sea patrols got highly intensified, or through the Turkey border, that also got recently blocked. So now they go around and pass through non EU countries like Bulgaria and end up in countries that are not prepared to deal with them.

Also, no, Italians are not sending back boatloads of refugees to drown. They actually drown when coming in with boats and crappy rafts loaded with twice their normal load. So Italy launched operation Mare Nostrum, one among many initiative, to actually try to save as many as they can, but they come from everywhere, at day, at night, and make sure they try to avoid being detected, because yes, eventually, it means ending up in refugee camps or more generally being sent back from where they come. And Europe is trying more and more to close its borders to that kind of things because it just becomes untenable for the south.

Being cruel to immigrants ? Well, not more than anywhere else I guess... Not that I heard of. We just try to send them back into their countries, but the problem is the discrepencies in how it's done. Some can still spend dozen of years on european soil, without any papers, with their families and children at school and suddenly been sent back. Which is completely wtf / nuts. And maybe that's when it tends to turn cruel and insensible. The real, true problem, is that all these immigrants can actually pass through the net. It becomes obnoxious for everyone, either the locals or themselves which just end up living in misery (which can still be better than where they come from...).

As for the metling pot culture, it generally happens in most cultural big cities, like New York, etc, I believe. Working myself in Paris, it's indeed a fucking huge melting pot. And now we are in summer I only hear people speak in foreign languages everywhere... And just generally fucking weird people and demented artists everywhere, but I digress... Should be the same in the US, if not more in certain places ? But go on the countryside and go ask a redneck what they think of melting pot and multi culti...

But unlike America, the number of cultures in Europe is thousand times higher and diverse thanks to older history and we unfortunately don't have only one south border to cover., all of that with conflicts nearby either in Africa (what happens there is just insane, go look up genocides and people being forced to eat their friends alive, or refugee camps in Kenya, while we only hear of Syria, Palestine and Ukraine, which are almost "soft" conflicts in comparison), middle East or Ukraine.

the EU gets into trouble, then it's in my opinion because Germany tries to strongman the other members into following it's lead.

That's already a strong feeling, yes, especially in southern EU member states that try to follow to the letter predicaments made by Germany.

[Silas Vitalia]

Interesting statistics!

http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/big-six-arms-exporters-2012-06-11

France, Germany, UK, consistantly 3rd, 4th, 5th place for exporting weapons. 

You love peace nearly as much as we do

[Nicoletta Mithra]

In regard to refugees, Germany actually is the country of the EU that is getting most requests for asylum - followed by France and Sweden. Most arrive in Spain and Italy, but they usually don't remain there. So, I don't think that Germany isn't doing enough there. And while the US is taking in more refugees than any other OECD country (68,000 in 2012) Germany is a close up second (64,540) followed by France (54,940). So, France and Germany alone take in more refugees than the entire US, all the while having less population which can buffer taking in people and being more densely populated! (Sweden is at 43,890).

As to immigrants, there's a similar situation. The US (with around a million legal immigrants a year the last few years) take in the most people of all OECD countries, but if we add up the EU countries we don't take in any less: The UK takes in the bulk of immigrants (591,000 in 2010), followed by Spain (465,200), Italy (458,900) and Germany (404,100), making up nearly two thirds of total immigration to EU countries.

Of course, though, the way from the Near East or Africa to the US is bit longer than to the EU, so I see that this is a factor. Then again, the US is already quite unhappy about the numbers of refugees/immigrants they recieve, it appears.

So, living in a small town of about 70,000 people I have daily contact with people who emmigrated to Germany from outside the EU, not counting the people that came here from EU member states. (We have people that moved here from Italy, Greece, Spain, and Portugal, mainly, in regard to EU countries.) There's no day going by that I don't hear people speak Turkish or Russian or some more exotic languages in the streets here (except for the days I stay at home). If I'm in Hamburg that increases of course. Then there are some towns in Germany that didn't see any recent immigration, but that only means that immigrants don't spread evenly across the country - obviously they move to where the jobs are.

the EU gets into trouble, then it's in my opinion because Germany tries to strongman the other members into following it's lead.

That's already a strong feeling, yes, especially in southern EU member states that try to follow to the letter predicaments made by Germany.

It was France's job as a strong partner to Germany to keep Germany in check in that regard! Alas, now you sell parts of Alstom to US investors rather than having German companies taking it over. A sad state. Hopefully germany will muster some self control.

Interesting statistics!

http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/big-six-arms-exporters-2012-06-11

France, Germany, UK, consistantly 3rd, 4th, 5th place for exporting weapons. 

You love peace nearly as much as we do

Yah, Germany was always exceptionally strong in exporting (No. 3 exporting nation, No. 1 net exporteur) and weapons are no exception there. It's criticized a lot in Germany, but to little avail (though, actually, German arms producers would like to export much more). German economy depends on exports and weapons are strong there.

[Nicoletta Mithra]

Speaking of the cup, Merkel was sitting awfully close to Putin

No, Putin was sitting awefully close to Merkel.

Good points Mithra, I really do enjoy hearing about these things from people overseas.  Perceptions can so often be wrong based on not good information.

True, same here. I think I'm full of prejudices about the US and thus am happy to communicate with you people here to purge me of those - or at least try!

I think my overall point was we all have a lot of work to on all of these issues to live up to any of our supposed ideals 

So true!

[orange]

But unlike America, the number of cultures in Europe is thousand times higher and diverse thanks to older history and we unfortunately don't have only one south border to cover., all of that with conflicts nearby either in Africa, middle East or Ukraine.

Why do western Europeans think this?

It is as if the waves of immigrants from Europe in the 19th and 20th century mean there is some sort of separation from that history.  That Polish-Americans and Italian-Americans do not have distinct cultural heritage from English-Americans.

Do you think those fleeing conflicts in Africa, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe only walk/row to where they are going?

Do the refugees and waves of immigrants from Asia not count (nearly 5% of the US population) for the United States?

Is the requirement for multiculturalism speaking a different language?  Or does it count if we have different traditions due to our ancestry?  How about the culture differences from one area of the US to another or one group to another?  Do they not count?

Then again, the US is already quite unhappy about the numbers of refugees/immigrants they receive, it appears.

The issue is the number of illegal immigrants who enter the country along the 3,145 km border with Mexico.  For comparison, the entire land border of Germany is 3,621 km and the entire land border of France is 2,889 km.  The border between the Ukraine and Russia is 1,576 km.

These illegal immigrants are not all Mexican, many of them are from further south.  Mexico is worried about illegal immigrants on its southern border!

All that said, North Americans aren't used to war on their continent nowadays, I feel. Europeans are to this day. So not only is WW II something that had a more direct effect on Europeans recently, but it's also the fact that there's no generation since then that didn't see war in (eastern) Europe since then.

Mexican Drug War?  Which bleeds into the southwest US (that long border thing).  I do not think that is very different than someone living in Denmark or the Netherlands claiming the ethnic conflict in the Balkans impacting them.

I notice the impact of being at war on the other side of the world for all my adult life.  I notice the young amputee passing me in the 10k run or at the airport - maybe I am just more attuned to look for it.  I have a reminder I wear everyday of the cost of war.  But I am not the American average.

My opinion is that most of western Europe grew very comfortable from 1945 to 1990 under the umbrella of NATO Article 5 and UK, US, and French nuclear and conventional deterrence.  It also is an explanation for why eastern European countries, especially those bordering a resurgent Russia, are interested in joining NATO.  Estonia (for example) simply can not fight-off a Russian invasion and needs the threat of a wider conflict to protect its sovereignty.

Through the 1990s, western Europe was able to continue to depend on the UK and US for conventional military power projection.  To include bringing an end to the ethnic conflicts in the Balkans, when diplomacy failed.

[Lyn Farel]

For cultures I may have spoken too quickly then, or in a clumsy way... That's true yes, though they tend to fade a little when all intermingled in a single state. I think that is progressively being the case in Europe too. All those cultures together remain, but also fade and form something else, bigger.

It was France's job as a strong partner to Germany to keep Germany in check in that regard! Alas, now you sell parts of Alstom to US investors rather than having German companies taking it over. A sad state. Hopefully germany will muster some self control.

Siemens was heavily rejected, especially by public opinion, since their respective fields were completely overlapping, and that even with promises made by the company, people were expecting a lot of lost jobs in the process.

Also, France has a problem in that it lost a lot of seats in the EU parliament in the last election from what I heard, which is a problem. Though I thought the number of seats was supposed to be fixed by country ? Not sure of myself here...

[Nmaro Makari]

For Lyn

Seats per country in the European Parliament are fixed, not decided by election. Otherwise the UK would have like, 3 seats.

The drama with France, and the UK for that matter, is that anti-EU right-wing parties were the top of the polls in both countries. Front Nationale for France, UKIP for UK.

[Silas Vitalia]

For Lyn

Seats per country in the European Parliament are fixed, not decided by election. Otherwise the UK would have like, 3 seats.

The drama with France, and the UK for that matter, is that anti-EU right-wing parties were the top of the polls in both countries. Front Nationale for France, UKIP for UK.

Another fascinating topic for me is what constitutes 'extreme' across the ocean.  There's interesting mixtures of issues where your average middle of the ground political stance in Europe is wildly left wing here, and vice versa, something that would be fairly middle ground here would be wildly radical overseas. 

Do your radical parties simply get more 'exposure' for elections rather than actual support? 

One of the difficult (or perhaps brilliant) things with American politics is that the overall winners for national contests have to toe a very careful line usually in the middle on many issues, essentially triangulating a position on most issues that pleases the most people and alienates the fewest.  That's all well and good for national elections, but you must first be 'elected' by your political party to run nationally, and your own party is the only one voting for that contest.   This makes for a sort of disastrous early contest where each party's fringe/radical elements get enormous support in the primaries but have 0 chance to win nationally.  So the middle of the road candidate has to play a game early on where they appear radical enough to make it out of the grueling primary contest against their own party brothers/sisters and then they have to tack sharply to the middle to win a national election.  The opposing side nationally gets a lot of free points because they just get to play tape of the candidate saying something crazy from a few months ago from trying to win the party candidate slot.   

[Nicoletta Mithra]

But unlike America, the number of cultures in Europe is thousand times higher and diverse thanks to older history and we unfortunately don't have only one south border to cover., all of that with conflicts nearby either in Africa, middle East or Ukraine.

Why do western Europeans think this?

It is as if the waves of immigrants from Europe in the 19th and 20th century mean there is some sort of separation from that history.  That Polish-Americans and Italian-Americans do not have distinct cultural heritage from English-Americans.

Do you think those fleeing conflicts in Africa, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe only walk/row to where they are going?

Do the refugees and waves of immigrants from Asia not count (nearly 5% of the US population) for the United States?

Is the requirement for multiculturalism speaking a different language?  Or does it count if we have different traditions due to our ancestry?  How about the culture differences from one area of the US to another or one group to another?  Do they not count?

While I don't think the US has less 'cultures' than the EU, I think the point Lyn wanted to make there (and his recent post points into that direction) is that if you have a nation that is a cultural melting pot, then there is a greater degree of assimilation, than if you have several different nations which all do assmilate foreigners that enter, but remain less impacted by the other nations. The difference between a Texan and someone from New York seems more like the difference between a Bavarian and a Meckelnburg-Wersternpommeranian to a European (And make no mistake, that is a hughe difference there already!), than that of Greek and an English. This is because there is less opportunity to identify as 'European' or 'EU-citizen' than as 'American' or 'US-citizen'.

So, ethnic diversity doesn't translate 1:1 into cultural diversity - and Europe isn't really less ethnically diverse than the US: We might not have as many black people in the EU on avaerage, but there's an argument to be made that we have in general a greater influx of immigrants of differing ethnic origins nowadays and the cultural identities of the black people that came as slaves to the US were at least gravely wounded during those centuries.

Then again, the US is already quite unhappy about the numbers of refugees/immigrants they receive, it appears.

The issue is the number of illegal immigrants who enter the country along the 3,145 km border with Mexico.  For comparison, the entire land border of Germany is 3,621 km and the entire land border of France is 2,889 km.  The border between the Ukraine and Russia is 1,576 km.

These illegal immigrants are not all Mexican, many of them are from further south.  Mexico is worried about illegal immigrants on its southern border!

Now, those border comparisions are funny! Germany is much smaller than the US, so of course it's border is 'small' by your standards. But what you really would have to compare is the border of the EU to other states - including the Mediterranean Sea, because that's where the EU gets its immigrants. Now if you look at the number of border crossings (cause that's more interesting then the length of the border if we talk about immigration...) then there is a far greater influx of people into the EU than the US (as I already wrote).

So, don't throw around these numbers as if they'd say that the EU doesn't know how it feels if people cross your borders. The EU is taking in three times as many immigrants as the US and yes, we aren't talking illegal immigration there, yet, which the EU has as well.

Also, there's a simple solution to illegal immigration: Raise your immigration quota. And while it has been done, four countries of the EU still take in about two times as many immigrants as the entire USA.

All that said, North Americans aren't used to war on their continent nowadays, I feel. Europeans are to this day. So not only is WW II something that had a more direct effect on Europeans recently, but it's also the fact that there's no generation since then that didn't see war in (eastern) Europe since then.

Mexican Drug War?  Which bleeds into the southwest US (that long border thing).  I do not think that is very different than someone living in Denmark or the Netherlands claiming the ethnic conflict in the Balkans impacting them.

I notice the impact of being at war on the other side of the world for all my adult life.  I notice the young amputee passing me in the 10k run or at the airport - maybe I am just more attuned to look for it.  I have a reminder I wear everyday of the cost of war.  But I am not the American average.

My opinion is that most of western Europe grew very comfortable from 1945 to 1990 under the umbrella of NATO Article 5 and UK, US, and French nuclear and conventional deterrence.  It also is an explanation for why eastern European countries, especially those bordering a resurgent Russia, are interested in joining NATO. Estonia (for example) simply can not fight-off a Russian invasion and needs the threat of a wider conflict to protect its sovereignty.

Through the 1990s, western Europe was able to continue to depend on the UK and US for conventional military power projection.  To include bringing an end to the ethnic conflicts in the Balkans, when diplomacy failed.

I never said you wouldn't notice the impact of war: I said that the average US citizen experiences the impact of war differently than the average EU citizen. And it'd be interesting that you bring up the amputed soldier and talk about the cost of war. If I think of the cost of war, I think of things like the number of babies born with spina bifida, cyclopia... due to the uranium ammunition that is contaminating their environment. I think of the half-a-dozen bombs that had to be defused just in my neighbourhood the last year: And the town I live in wasn't bombed a lot. And that makes me reflect of how NATO bombs inflict on the lives of civilians in lands that we bombed. So, when was the last time you had to leave your home because a bomb had to be defused from one of the world wars?

And what do you mean by Europe depending on UK and French nuklear and conventional forces? UK and French forces are European forces. It's like saying that, the USA is depending on the member states where nuklear weapons are actually stationed.

Also, more generally speaking, I think you mistake an aversion to war for 'growing confortable'. You apparently seem to follow the idea that 'military power projection', aka killing people in armed conflict, could bring an 'end' to ethnic conflicts. Well, ... let's just say I'm less optimistic about what war can achieve there.

It was France's job as a strong partner to Germany to keep Germany in check in that regard! Alas, now you sell parts of Alstom to US investors rather than having German companies taking it over. A sad state. Hopefully germany will muster some self control.

Siemens was heavily rejected, especially by public opinion, since their respective fields were completely overlapping, and that even with promises made by the company, people were expecting a lot of lost jobs in the process.

Well, I think it's understandable that you didn't want to sell to a German company, given that it'd have been another economical lever for Germany against France. On the other hand, I can see why you wouldn't want to sell to US corporations either. France is in a difficult position, it seems to me, and it needs to get back on track, imho, for the sake of Europe.