19 ms·

The historical period of the NATO alliance is also the longest period of peace from major wars in the history of Europe.

• runarberg 6y ago
  There are number of better explanations for the peace, e.g. people remember the horrors of world war 2, increased democracy, increased trade and travel between the nations, more open borders between the nations? Historically and mathematically military build up leads to war. There is no point in military alliance unless you intend to use it. I say that peace has (almost) prevailed in Europe despite of NATO, not because of it
  • dragonwriter 6y ago
    > Historically and mathematically military build up leads to war. Mathematics has nothing to do with it. And historically, military draw down also leads to war. Or, a better explanation might be, historically, passage of time leads to war.
    • runarberg 6y ago
      > a better explanation might be, historically, passage of time leads to war. My point exactly. Say that wars break out naturally with some Poisson-like distribution. When the war breaks out, the scale of it is gonna be in relation to the current arsenal of the warring parties. So given your comment, I can revise my comment to say: Historically—and mathematically—military build up leads more devastating wars. Although that is not entirely true. As if nations didn’t hold militaries, there wouldn’t be wars between nations.
      • AnimalMuppet 6y ago
        Those who don't have militaries can still die by them.
  • georgeecollins 6y ago
    And people didn't remember the horror of WW1, the Napoleonic Wars, etc? That is actually a worse explanation IMO.
• nradov 6y ago
  Would you not count the Yugoslav wars in 1991 - 2001 as major wars? NATO was heavily involved.
  • georgeecollins 6y ago
    No