5 ms·

I should have really mentioned "there hasn't been an intra-european war in a long time" as one of the definite upsides. So I'll happily concede that this was on

I should have really mentioned "there hasn't been an intra-european war in a long time" as one of the definite upsides. So I'll happily concede that this was one of the driving forces behind the very beginnings of the European project. But for the last 30-40 years, there has been a very clear neoliberal agenda throughout Europe, and as detailed above, it's not a good development for most people. For now, the nationalists have mostly focused on "non-Europeans" as the scapegoats, but e.g. in Germany, the "lazy Greeks" have had their (un)fair share of xenophobia too, and I don't see that getting better as we keep pitting the poor against the even poorer. So now we stand to lose what little unity we have to a market "religion" and its fallout.

jacquesm 7y ago
> there hasn't been an intra-european war in a long time Former Yugoslavia aside, this is no guarantee there won't be and with the rise of nationalism things are not looking good.
- svara 7y ago
  While you're certainly right that there is no guarantee in the strictest sense, do you really believe that? I'm German-French. I honestly believe I've never met anyone in my life in my age group (that I've talked to enough to say this) who would be willing to go fight a neighboring country. Where would these people, and support for them, come from?
  - jacquesm 7y ago
    > I'm German-French. I honestly believe I've never met anyone in my life in my age group (that I've talked to enough to say this) who would be willing to go fight a neighboring country. Just to give you one example: if a Trump type would gain the upper hand in any one of the larger European countries all of which have a strong representation of what I'd loosely term neo-nationalists the stage would be set for an 'us vs them' degrading of international relations. The UK is a prime candidate for this. If such an aggressor were to aim to go for retribution based on perceived sleights (for instance: the economy tanking because of 'them') then you just might have to defend yourself from that. Which would not cause you to have to fight in a neighboring country, it might cause you to fight in your own. Alternatives for this: the Baltics, Poland, Hungary, Moldavia and Romania are all sitting on Putin's doorstep and splitting Europe could be the precursor to Russia crossing its borders. Especially the Baltic situation is very much analogue to the Ukraine one with Kaliningrad in the role of Eastern Ukraine and the ethnic Russian population in Latvia and Lithuania potentially mobilized in the same way they were in Ukraine. Europe/NATO then has the choice to fall apart or come to the aid of their members; which more or less would set the stage for WWIII. None of this is fun to contemplate but I think these risks are real.
    - dfawcus 7y ago
      Don't worry - assuming the Tories do win a majority, and the UK leaves the EU: Then with the loss of the SM, and no trading relations (probably for 7+ years), our economy will take a serious hit, and we'll likely suffer some form of recession. There are plenty of us who know that such an economic impact is simply a consequence of our own choices. We're going to be too busy sorting out our own problems, with each domestic side blaming the others, and possibly successive governments from opposite sides of political spectrum. A return to the 70s. So I rather doubt we'll be a threat to any other European state. We'll be navel gazing for some time. Also our conventional forces are seriously eroded, we've wasted money on useless aircraft carriers, and other vanity kit. The real worry should be if the UK becomes a failed state, and some nutter finds the nuclear trigger.
      - jacquesm 7y ago
        > The real worry should be if the UK becomes a failed state I don't rule that out. The amount of venom and irrationality injected into UK politics right now as well as the Scottish / Irish issues combined with a healthy bunch of scapegoating could just about do it. Best case the Union collapses, Scotland joins the EU (against the wishes of Spain this will be a hard thing to accomplish) and Ireland does not fall back into their old habits. It's a serious problem and the number of people that will suffer because of these idiots that are trying hard to diminish the size of the pond so they will appear bigger is going to be in the 10's of millions at best, many more in the worst case.
        Jamwinner 7y ago
        At what point would letting all the gilded royal bs, half-hearted HoC jousting for image, and entrenched party politics fall and starting fresh make sense? To say the UK has some 'technical debt' would be understated at best.
        jacquesm 7y ago
        That very much depends on the price ticket attached to 'fail'. Agreed on the tech debt, that's an excellent way of putting it. Other people might call it tradition but I think an improvement is long overdue.
  - GVIrish 7y ago
    There are a couple of things that could upset the geopolitical status quo in a way that could lead to war in Europe. A massive influx of refugees from the Middle East in particular could have the effect of destabilizing any of the countries that accept them. It could also embolden and empower nationalists who in turn may make extreme choices that could lead to open hostility. If there's a resurgence in radical Climate change may indeed be the cause of large refugee crises hitting Europe. Depending on how bad climate change related events are, it could degrade the ability of governments to maintain order and provide public services. Those are things that can lead to unpredictable and violent outcomes. Then there's the specter of Putin's Russia using covert and direct military action to reclaim former Soviet territory, subvert European governments, spread nationalist propaganda, etc. And there's always the Black swan event that no one had on their radar that could massively change the playing board. We've already seen a big upheaval with Brexit, the Trump presidency, and the Syrua refugee crisis. More of that kind of stuff would be really bad news for Europe.
  - vasac 7y ago
    You would be surprised how fast things played out in Yugoslavia. I clearly remember 15 years old me at 1989 when I become aware how expensive weapons really are and how stupid is to spend such large amount of money on something that we obviously will never need. War started two years later, I got drafted couple of years later and ended using same weapons that I firmly believed we'll never need. You can argue that I was naive kid but war came as a big surprise to large percentage of adults too. From memoirs of various politicians it's clear that they had much better grasp on reality but for general public things moved from bad to worse really, really fast.
    - jacquesm 7y ago
      Spot on. A friend in Poland, fairly high up in politics there visited Yugoslavia a few months before war broke out. Afterwards we spoke and he said he had absolutely no indication that anything was brewing at all. It was well known that Tito kept a tight lid on the factions, it took about 10 years until Croatia started to stir and another year for Slovenia to secede and that set the stage for the largest war on European soil in decades.
    - svara 7y ago
      Thanks for your comment, it's really interesting and helpful to hear from someone who's actually seen this play out in real life. I suspect it's not you, but me who's sounding naive here. I do believe, though, that there's something about stable, market-oriented democracies that makes violent conflict unlikely, and there's quite some empirical evidence for that, too. See Steven Pinker and so on. The history of Yugoslavia may therefore not generalize to today's Europe. Also, attitudes of people do matter, and they certainly do in a democracy. Many of the young men who went to fight in WW1 truly believed they were taking part in some great, noble, adventure of historic proportions. This world view just does not exist anymore, it seems about as close to my life as, say, the Spanish inquisition, and I'd wager that's true for most people in Europe today.
      - jacquesm 7y ago
        You're not answering me, but for that it is worth I sincerely hope you are right and I'm wrong. And thank you for the exchange.
dfawcus 7y ago
"there hasn't been an intra-european war in a long time" However is that really attributable to the existence of the EEC? Or was it the fact that the Cold War was ongoing, and that Germany was essentially disarmed and occupied? I'd suggest that the latter was sufficient to prevent a war between Germany and France (the feared intra-european war). Hence we can not make any claims as to if the existence of the EEC/EU was necessary for that peace in the period prior to 1994. The post 1994 period is more interesting (especially after 2008), and here the EU does provide forums for greater understanding between the nations of its member states. So if we want to measure the EU's ability to create peace within its bounds, I'd suggest we only start counting from 10 years ago. As to the neoliberal agenda, I'd suggest that started with the Single Market and its increased regulatory convergence, hence also from around 1994.

jacquesm 7y ago

> there hasn't been an intra-european war in a long time Former Yugoslavia aside, this is no guarantee there won't be and with the rise of nationalism things are not looking good.

svara 7y ago
While you're certainly right that there is no guarantee in the strictest sense, do you really believe that? I'm German-French. I honestly believe I've never met anyone in my life in my age group (that I've talked to enough to say this) who would be willing to go fight a neighboring country. Where would these people, and support for them, come from?
- jacquesm 7y ago
  > I'm German-French. I honestly believe I've never met anyone in my life in my age group (that I've talked to enough to say this) who would be willing to go fight a neighboring country. Just to give you one example: if a Trump type would gain the upper hand in any one of the larger European countries all of which have a strong representation of what I'd loosely term neo-nationalists the stage would be set for an 'us vs them' degrading of international relations. The UK is a prime candidate for this. If such an aggressor were to aim to go for retribution based on perceived sleights (for instance: the economy tanking because of 'them') then you just might have to defend yourself from that. Which would not cause you to have to fight in a neighboring country, it might cause you to fight in your own. Alternatives for this: the Baltics, Poland, Hungary, Moldavia and Romania are all sitting on Putin's doorstep and splitting Europe could be the precursor to Russia crossing its borders. Especially the Baltic situation is very much analogue to the Ukraine one with Kaliningrad in the role of Eastern Ukraine and the ethnic Russian population in Latvia and Lithuania potentially mobilized in the same way they were in Ukraine. Europe/NATO then has the choice to fall apart or come to the aid of their members; which more or less would set the stage for WWIII. None of this is fun to contemplate but I think these risks are real.
  - dfawcus 7y ago
    Don't worry - assuming the Tories do win a majority, and the UK leaves the EU: Then with the loss of the SM, and no trading relations (probably for 7+ years), our economy will take a serious hit, and we'll likely suffer some form of recession. There are plenty of us who know that such an economic impact is simply a consequence of our own choices. We're going to be too busy sorting out our own problems, with each domestic side blaming the others, and possibly successive governments from opposite sides of political spectrum. A return to the 70s. So I rather doubt we'll be a threat to any other European state. We'll be navel gazing for some time. Also our conventional forces are seriously eroded, we've wasted money on useless aircraft carriers, and other vanity kit. The real worry should be if the UK becomes a failed state, and some nutter finds the nuclear trigger.
    - jacquesm 7y ago
      > The real worry should be if the UK becomes a failed state I don't rule that out. The amount of venom and irrationality injected into UK politics right now as well as the Scottish / Irish issues combined with a healthy bunch of scapegoating could just about do it. Best case the Union collapses, Scotland joins the EU (against the wishes of Spain this will be a hard thing to accomplish) and Ireland does not fall back into their old habits. It's a serious problem and the number of people that will suffer because of these idiots that are trying hard to diminish the size of the pond so they will appear bigger is going to be in the 10's of millions at best, many more in the worst case.
      - Jamwinner 7y ago
        At what point would letting all the gilded royal bs, half-hearted HoC jousting for image, and entrenched party politics fall and starting fresh make sense? To say the UK has some 'technical debt' would be understated at best.
        jacquesm 7y ago
        That very much depends on the price ticket attached to 'fail'. Agreed on the tech debt, that's an excellent way of putting it. Other people might call it tradition but I think an improvement is long overdue.
- GVIrish 7y ago
  There are a couple of things that could upset the geopolitical status quo in a way that could lead to war in Europe. A massive influx of refugees from the Middle East in particular could have the effect of destabilizing any of the countries that accept them. It could also embolden and empower nationalists who in turn may make extreme choices that could lead to open hostility. If there's a resurgence in radical Climate change may indeed be the cause of large refugee crises hitting Europe. Depending on how bad climate change related events are, it could degrade the ability of governments to maintain order and provide public services. Those are things that can lead to unpredictable and violent outcomes. Then there's the specter of Putin's Russia using covert and direct military action to reclaim former Soviet territory, subvert European governments, spread nationalist propaganda, etc. And there's always the Black swan event that no one had on their radar that could massively change the playing board. We've already seen a big upheaval with Brexit, the Trump presidency, and the Syrua refugee crisis. More of that kind of stuff would be really bad news for Europe.
- vasac 7y ago
  You would be surprised how fast things played out in Yugoslavia. I clearly remember 15 years old me at 1989 when I become aware how expensive weapons really are and how stupid is to spend such large amount of money on something that we obviously will never need. War started two years later, I got drafted couple of years later and ended using same weapons that I firmly believed we'll never need. You can argue that I was naive kid but war came as a big surprise to large percentage of adults too. From memoirs of various politicians it's clear that they had much better grasp on reality but for general public things moved from bad to worse really, really fast.
  - jacquesm 7y ago
    Spot on. A friend in Poland, fairly high up in politics there visited Yugoslavia a few months before war broke out. Afterwards we spoke and he said he had absolutely no indication that anything was brewing at all. It was well known that Tito kept a tight lid on the factions, it took about 10 years until Croatia started to stir and another year for Slovenia to secede and that set the stage for the largest war on European soil in decades.
  - svara 7y ago
    Thanks for your comment, it's really interesting and helpful to hear from someone who's actually seen this play out in real life. I suspect it's not you, but me who's sounding naive here. I do believe, though, that there's something about stable, market-oriented democracies that makes violent conflict unlikely, and there's quite some empirical evidence for that, too. See Steven Pinker and so on. The history of Yugoslavia may therefore not generalize to today's Europe. Also, attitudes of people do matter, and they certainly do in a democracy. Many of the young men who went to fight in WW1 truly believed they were taking part in some great, noble, adventure of historic proportions. This world view just does not exist anymore, it seems about as close to my life as, say, the Spanish inquisition, and I'd wager that's true for most people in Europe today.
    - jacquesm 7y ago
      You're not answering me, but for that it is worth I sincerely hope you are right and I'm wrong. And thank you for the exchange.

dfawcus 7y ago

"there hasn't been an intra-european war in a long time" However is that really attributable to the existence of the EEC? Or was it the fact that the Cold War was ongoing, and that Germany was essentially disarmed and occupied? I'd suggest that the latter was sufficient to prevent a war between Germany and France (the feared intra-european war). Hence we can not make any claims as to if the existence of the EEC/EU was necessary for that peace in the period prior to 1994. The post 1994 period is more interesting (especially after 2008), and here the EU does provide forums for greater understanding between the nations of its member states. So if we want to measure the EU's ability to create peace within its bounds, I'd suggest we only start counting from 10 years ago. As to the neoliberal agenda, I'd suggest that started with the Single Market and its increased regulatory convergence, hence also from around 1994.