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Shared interests can look a lot like friendship. Looking at the postwar period as evidence of friendships between Western European powers doesn't help your poin

Shared interests can look a lot like friendship. Looking at the postwar period as evidence of friendships between Western European powers doesn't help your point. They were and are unified by strong common interests and common enemies. Economic integration and cultural similarities also lead to common interests. Any conflicts they do have stay below the level of military conflict due to the overwhelming force of American troops keeping peace on the continent, and nuclear deterrents. Before the Cold War, Europeans had been slaughtering each other for centuries, for millennia.

allendoerfer 10y ago
Of course some a common enemy and a possible nuclear winter let you think twice about the next war, but Germany and France have shared interests with a lot of other countries, too, with whom pictures like this do not exist. I think I found almost all my friends through common interests and in times of piece, for which we ourselves had done very little (while I do not share your point that this is only because 'murica). Does not mean that they are not my friends.