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The strategy of economic integration as a way to reduce military tension has worked very well in many other instances. It doesn't seem like an obviously insane

The strategy of economic integration as a way to reduce military tension has worked very well in many other instances. It doesn't seem like an obviously insane thing to have tried.

philwelch 3y ago
The strategy seems to have gone 0-2 with Russia and China; can you name an instance in which it succeeded?
- illiac786 3y ago
  EU?
  - philwelch 3y ago
    That's putting the cart before the horse; countries only join the EU after they're already politically aligned with the current membership. Turkey, for instance, has been kept out of the European Union precisely because of these types of concerns; a strategy of economic integration would have entailed allowing Turkey to join the EU in hopes that the EU would be a positive influence on the country. Edit: I'm being throttled so I'll respond to similar comments here. TheOtherHobbes similarly notes: > The EU. France and Germany used to be deadly enemies. No one sane is expecting a war between them any time soon. In particular, France and Germany weren't peacefully reconciled through economic integration. There was a war, and the victors of that war installed democratic governments in both France and West Germany and inducted both countries into a broader alliance. > Same with US states. Texas etc keep muttering about secession, but the economic complications make it an insane idea. It took about two decades after Texas was admitted to the union for the states to fight a civil war against each other. genman says: > Remember WW1? WW2? Not personally (I'm not that old) but those were not instances of economic integration easing military tensions; they were instances of extremely bloody world wars. And the First World War in particular was already deemed impossible because of the degree to which European economies were already economically integrated. That theory did not pan out. wolverine876: > The EU (in its early forms) was formed by the countries that just fought each other in WWI and WWII, and for centuries before that. The EU was specifically intended to prevent another war. Again reversing cause and effect. The Allies won the Second World War and installed friendly governments across western Europe (and also in Greece); following this, those friendly governments formed the EU.
    - wolverine876 3y ago
      > countries only join the EU after they're already politically aligned with the current membership. The EU (in its early forms) was formed by the countries that just fought each other in WWI and WWII, and for centuries before that. The EU was specifically intended to prevent another war.
      - jacquesm 3y ago
        > The EU (in its early forms) was formed by the countries that just fought each other in WWI and WWII, and for centuries before that. Not quite, the Western Union (predecessor to the EU by way of the was formed by the BeNeLux countries, the UK and France. Some of those were at war in preceding centuries but they were on the same side during WWI and WWII. It didn't have a lot of clout because very rapidly afterwards other more powerful institutions were formed and it was superceded. But it was more of a continuation of some of the collaboration that stemmed from being allies/liberators in the war than that they were on opposing sides. Later institutions included Germany and Italy as well.
        wolverine876 3y ago
        In Europe there have undoubtedly been international institutions going back a long way. Is what you're talking about really a blood ancestor of the EU, or is it a predecessor - another group that happened to have some of the same members. As I recall, Churchill was a strong proponent of the EU's [edit: I can't believe I used the wrong word:] ancestor (the European Communities? Some oil and coal community?), as a way to prevent further wars. Churchill blamed nationalism specifically.
        jacquesm 3y ago
        I would say it was because there is a reasonably direct line of succession in terms of both members and responsibilities. The steel and coal union is also in that line. What happened is that the unification was seen as beneficial but that a larger body with a more future proof organization was what really was required.
- phobotics 3y ago
  Most of Europe?
- genman 3y ago
  Remember WW1? WW2?
  - Anthony-G 3y ago
    And the two millennia of recorded history before those wars.
- TheOtherHobbes 3y ago
  The EU. France and Germany used to be deadly enemies. No one sane is expecting a war between them any time soon. Same with US states. Texas etc keep muttering about secession, but the economic complications make it an insane idea. It's not inherently a bad strategy, but it tends to fail when you're dealing with huge would-be hegemons - which certainly applies to China and Russia.
  - vogre 3y ago
    >No one sane is expecting a war between them any time soon. Ukraine and Russia were same country like almost forever. No one sane was expecting a war between them. Don't underestimate ability of polititians to screw things up.
    - jacquesm 3y ago
      Ukraine was under Russian dominion like almost forever, but that didn't make it a part of Russia. If it had been then Russians would not distinguish between 'Russians' and 'little Russians' and other (far worse) terms.
      - throwawaymaths 3y ago
        not to forget that at one point muscovy was under ukraininian (Rus-ian) dominion.
      - thriftwy 3y ago
        Germans do distinguish between Prussian Germans and Bavarian Germans. Nevertheless it's the same country. Various types of Germans also did have a large number of wars agains one another. Russian position is indeed that Ukrainian claims on the statehood in 1991 or even 2014 borders are absolutely bogus. Personally, I also find it hard to respect the immutability of international borders that are younger than I am.
        jacquesm 3y ago
        But they don't see the other half of Germany as untermenschen. Which is roughly how the Russians view the denizens of all of the conquered land in their empire that isn't Russia proper.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- pas 3y ago
  China did go through a lot of effort to gain WTO MFN status. Then the US (and others too) stopped enforcing symmetric market policies. Stick and carrots. Both are required.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- throwawaymaths 3y ago
  taiwan, south korea, singapore not to mention that china was on a reasonably good trajectory until a certain yellow bear ascended to the throne
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- Gibbon1 3y ago
  I don't personally think is economic liberalization that succeeded. It's the US won't stand for anymore wars like that. And for 50 years after WWII they could enforce that. You can note the general absence of large wars in North and South America as evidence of that.
andy-x 3y ago
You probably mean "to prevent military tension"? When tension already becomes war, it's sort of pointless to continue economic integration in the hope that it can stop war.
- ethanbond 3y ago
  I don't know what truly zero military tension looks like but I think economic integration can both prevent and reduce it.
genman 3y ago
If it was not clear for the reader of this comment: European Union is the example that has ended centuries old tensions between European powers.
- nec4b 3y ago
  Results of the second world war, the American hegemony and the soviet threat did that. Not the EU.
  - genman 3y ago
    Not true. The Soviet threat existed already before the WW2. It was actually the main reason why Nazi Germany was able to become that powerful - Britain and France hoped that Germany will balance that Soviet threat out. Eventually it did, but not without huge damages to Britain and France and without substantially aiding Russia. If your claim was true we should have seen huge increase in tensions between France and Germany after the collapse of Soviet Union, but rather the opposite is true.
    - nec4b 3y ago
      Russia didn't disappear after the collapse. Germany was utterly defeated in the WW2, occupied by western allies and the soviet union and is demilitarized compared to France. Americans still have military bases there. Its whole existence after WW2 was reshaped by the victors to not be a threat again.
      - genman 3y ago
        Germany was defeated and was rebuilt and the tools to reshape the European political landscape from within was first ECSC and later European Union. Yes, US military presence works as some stabilizing mechanism but it wouldn't have been enough without European mutual political framework. EU leaders mistakenly thought that they can have the same success with Russia but they didn't take into account the fact that Russian new president had completely misaligned interests.
- 3y ago
lawlessone 3y ago
>The strategy of economic integration as a way to reduce military tension has worked very well in many other instances. It mostly worked within in the EU because you needed meaningfully adopt certain standards to join the market. Russia didn't have to do any of that and by the time more people started to understand the problem developing they already had leverage.
- treflop 3y ago
  Russia is a gigantic country with vast resources that isn’t bordered by Europe, and more than once it was a superpower and it was a superpower against another gigantic country. On the other hand, Europe consists of small countries trying to fit in with their neighbors. It’s like thinking the scooter kids are gonna be hanging with the skater kids. It’s not that they are inherently that different, but they have such different mindsets that it means they see their positions in the world differently.
  - ivan_gammel 3y ago
    >Russia is a gigantic country with vast resources that isn’t bordered by Europe Maybe you should look at the map before writing such nonsense. 1. Russia does have borders both with EU and NATO. Norway, Finland, Baltic states, Poland. 2. Russia is geographically in Europe too. Most of its population and the capital are in Europe. Among European countries it does have the largest territory, population and nuclear arsenal, but it is not even the biggest economy. Ex-superpower is not a now-superpower. Mindset-wise it has a lot in common with other EU members.
    - treflop 3y ago
      Obviously Russia borders Europe. How do you do a land invasion of Europe without bordering Europe? But Russia isn’t Germany whose borders are completely dominated by Europe. Putin obviously thinks Russia should still be a superpower. People get that mentality when they see the past and think they deserve it again. Holy shit people love the “glory days.” There are conflicts that have been going on for millennia like in the Middle East and they fight today because their ancestors fought. People have a hard on for the past. You’ll teach someone command line Git starting out and they love it and they will never bother with a GUI because they value their experience more than practicality.
wrs 3y ago
Well, it works OK as long as the countries involved don’t get taken over by a demagogue, dictator, or whatever the Brexit movement was. In other words, rationality and cooperation go out the window. Which turns out to be a pretty common failure mode according to 21st century evidence.
- jacquesm 3y ago
  Indeed, and it's a serious problem. There are really only two ways out of this mess and one is not at all like the other and both are roughly equally likely by my reckoning.
- benterix 3y ago
  > Well, it works OK I believe the problem is that the premise is false. It works OK for a part of the population that feels comfortable with it. When you look closer at the root causes they are not immaterial and often boil down to people not wanting immigrants around them. If you are progressive you can just dismiss their outdated attitude - and this is what center- and left-wing politicians were doing for decades. Ignoring and ridiculing these folks caused the radical right to grow stronger in several European countries. Putin knows that and that's why he is sending more and more of them to Belarussian borders.
christkv 3y ago
I don’t think there is proof for that at all. It’s more likely due to the countries all being democracies
- beefield 3y ago
  This. Amartya Sen has claimed that two actual democracies have never been at war between each other. At least I find hard to find significant counterexamples in history. (Not sure about the Falkland war. And I think Finland was technically at war with UK in the second world war) I think the democratic and developed countries need to change their game plan pretty soon. The countries that are willing to join the club should be offered actual help to develop. By actual help I mean trade treaties that are designed to benefit those countries, not developed countries. Includes IP vaiwers, duties that protect local industries etc. The countries that do not want to join, (including China and Orban's Hungary) then again, should be punished in all ways possible. Massive duties to commodities and other products imported from those countries, as a starter. Open democracies do not need to be nice guys if they are threatened. Must not be, to be more precise. See Popper and paradox of tolerance.
  - klassik 3y ago
    >Not sure about the Falkland war Do you mean the war between Argentina and England? Argentina was not only under a military dictatorship then, but the war was definitely triggered by the military junta.
  - dilyevsky 3y ago
    Off the top of my head: 1. karabakh war (at least the first one) 2. six day war 3. turkey's invasion of cyprus 4. some yugoslav wars
  - lr1970 3y ago
    > This. Amartya Sen has claimed that two actual democracies have never been at war between each other. At least I find hard to find significant counterexamples in history. Off the top of my head -- a war of 1812 between Great Britain and United States. Both countries were democracies at that time.
freedomben 3y ago
Indeed. There's a common saying that sort of derives from Frédéric Bastiat that "where goods cross borders, armies don't." Trade and economic dependence is the best deterrent of war that there is. That doesn't necessarily mean that it stops all war, but it definitely raises the cost of war and costs matter. It's also IMHO the most productive and ethical way to reduce/prevent war. Maybe they shouldn't have allowed something so fundamental as energy to become a dependence, but generally speaking the principles are sound.
- tivert 3y ago
  > Indeed. There's a common saying that sort of derives from Frédéric Bastiat that "where goods cross borders, armies don't." Trade and economic dependence is the best deterrent of war that there is. It's a saying whose truth has been greatly exaggerated, and the people who foolishly believe it have a tendency to make themselves vulnerable. > That doesn't necessarily mean that it stops all war, but it definitely raises the cost of war and costs matter. Costs apparently matter less than you think.
  - amarant 3y ago
    GP has a point. While economic integration didn't work this time, it has in the past. Been a while since you last saw Germany invading Poland for example. Or France. Costs obviously do matter, but no-one is saying it's a fool-proof means of control. Also I think part of the problem in this case is that Europe failed to make Russia sufficiently financially dependent on Europe. Instead Europe made itself dependent on Russia for energy, which means that the pacifying forces of trade are leveraged more towards Europe than towards Russia. Geopolitics are complicated and messy. The more I think about them the more my head hurts.
    - tivert 3y ago
      > GP has a point. While economic integration didn't work this time, it has in the past. Been a while since you last saw Germany invading Poland for example. Or France. Is that because of economic integration, or other reasons? Since WWII, Germany and France sat on the same side of a military alliance for more than a generation against a formidable foe (which would obviously change some attitudes), and there have been other ideological developments in those countries at well (e.g. the degree that Germans are pacifists as a reaction to Naziism).
smsm42 3y ago
It worked when both sides wanted it to work. When one side's fundamental strategy includes fomenting tension as an integral component, no amount of concessions and friendly gestures from the other side would be enough to reduce it.

The strategy of economic integration as a way to reduce military tension has worked very well in many other instances. It doesn't seem like an obviously insane thing to have tried.

philwelch 3y ago

The strategy seems to have gone 0-2 with Russia and China; can you name an instance in which it succeeded?

illiac786 3y ago
EU?
- philwelch 3y ago
  That's putting the cart before the horse; countries only join the EU after they're already politically aligned with the current membership. Turkey, for instance, has been kept out of the European Union precisely because of these types of concerns; a strategy of economic integration would have entailed allowing Turkey to join the EU in hopes that the EU would be a positive influence on the country. Edit: I'm being throttled so I'll respond to similar comments here. TheOtherHobbes similarly notes: > The EU. France and Germany used to be deadly enemies. No one sane is expecting a war between them any time soon. In particular, France and Germany weren't peacefully reconciled through economic integration. There was a war, and the victors of that war installed democratic governments in both France and West Germany and inducted both countries into a broader alliance. > Same with US states. Texas etc keep muttering about secession, but the economic complications make it an insane idea. It took about two decades after Texas was admitted to the union for the states to fight a civil war against each other. genman says: > Remember WW1? WW2? Not personally (I'm not that old) but those were not instances of economic integration easing military tensions; they were instances of extremely bloody world wars. And the First World War in particular was already deemed impossible because of the degree to which European economies were already economically integrated. That theory did not pan out. wolverine876: > The EU (in its early forms) was formed by the countries that just fought each other in WWI and WWII, and for centuries before that. The EU was specifically intended to prevent another war. Again reversing cause and effect. The Allies won the Second World War and installed friendly governments across western Europe (and also in Greece); following this, those friendly governments formed the EU.
  - wolverine876 3y ago
    > countries only join the EU after they're already politically aligned with the current membership. The EU (in its early forms) was formed by the countries that just fought each other in WWI and WWII, and for centuries before that. The EU was specifically intended to prevent another war.
    - jacquesm 3y ago
      > The EU (in its early forms) was formed by the countries that just fought each other in WWI and WWII, and for centuries before that. Not quite, the Western Union (predecessor to the EU by way of the was formed by the BeNeLux countries, the UK and France. Some of those were at war in preceding centuries but they were on the same side during WWI and WWII. It didn't have a lot of clout because very rapidly afterwards other more powerful institutions were formed and it was superceded. But it was more of a continuation of some of the collaboration that stemmed from being allies/liberators in the war than that they were on opposing sides. Later institutions included Germany and Italy as well.
      - wolverine876 3y ago
        In Europe there have undoubtedly been international institutions going back a long way. Is what you're talking about really a blood ancestor of the EU, or is it a predecessor - another group that happened to have some of the same members. As I recall, Churchill was a strong proponent of the EU's [edit: I can't believe I used the wrong word:] ancestor (the European Communities? Some oil and coal community?), as a way to prevent further wars. Churchill blamed nationalism specifically.
        jacquesm 3y ago
        I would say it was because there is a reasonably direct line of succession in terms of both members and responsibilities. The steel and coal union is also in that line. What happened is that the unification was seen as beneficial but that a larger body with a more future proof organization was what really was required.
phobotics 3y ago
Most of Europe?
genman 3y ago
Remember WW1? WW2?
- Anthony-G 3y ago
  And the two millennia of recorded history before those wars.
TheOtherHobbes 3y ago
The EU. France and Germany used to be deadly enemies. No one sane is expecting a war between them any time soon. Same with US states. Texas etc keep muttering about secession, but the economic complications make it an insane idea. It's not inherently a bad strategy, but it tends to fail when you're dealing with huge would-be hegemons - which certainly applies to China and Russia.
- vogre 3y ago
  >No one sane is expecting a war between them any time soon. Ukraine and Russia were same country like almost forever. No one sane was expecting a war between them. Don't underestimate ability of polititians to screw things up.
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    Ukraine was under Russian dominion like almost forever, but that didn't make it a part of Russia. If it had been then Russians would not distinguish between 'Russians' and 'little Russians' and other (far worse) terms.
    - throwawaymaths 3y ago
      not to forget that at one point muscovy was under ukraininian (Rus-ian) dominion.
    - thriftwy 3y ago
      Germans do distinguish between Prussian Germans and Bavarian Germans. Nevertheless it's the same country. Various types of Germans also did have a large number of wars agains one another. Russian position is indeed that Ukrainian claims on the statehood in 1991 or even 2014 borders are absolutely bogus. Personally, I also find it hard to respect the immutability of international borders that are younger than I am.
      - jacquesm 3y ago
        But they don't see the other half of Germany as untermenschen. Which is roughly how the Russians view the denizens of all of the conquered land in their empire that isn't Russia proper.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
pas 3y ago
China did go through a lot of effort to gain WTO MFN status. Then the US (and others too) stopped enforcing symmetric market policies. Stick and carrots. Both are required.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
throwawaymaths 3y ago
taiwan, south korea, singapore not to mention that china was on a reasonably good trajectory until a certain yellow bear ascended to the throne
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Gibbon1 3y ago
I don't personally think is economic liberalization that succeeded. It's the US won't stand for anymore wars like that. And for 50 years after WWII they could enforce that. You can note the general absence of large wars in North and South America as evidence of that.

andy-x 3y ago

You probably mean "to prevent military tension"? When tension already becomes war, it's sort of pointless to continue economic integration in the hope that it can stop war.

ethanbond 3y ago
I don't know what truly zero military tension looks like but I think economic integration can both prevent and reduce it.

genman 3y ago

If it was not clear for the reader of this comment: European Union is the example that has ended centuries old tensions between European powers.

nec4b 3y ago
Results of the second world war, the American hegemony and the soviet threat did that. Not the EU.
- genman 3y ago
  Not true. The Soviet threat existed already before the WW2. It was actually the main reason why Nazi Germany was able to become that powerful - Britain and France hoped that Germany will balance that Soviet threat out. Eventually it did, but not without huge damages to Britain and France and without substantially aiding Russia. If your claim was true we should have seen huge increase in tensions between France and Germany after the collapse of Soviet Union, but rather the opposite is true.
  - nec4b 3y ago
    Russia didn't disappear after the collapse. Germany was utterly defeated in the WW2, occupied by western allies and the soviet union and is demilitarized compared to France. Americans still have military bases there. Its whole existence after WW2 was reshaped by the victors to not be a threat again.
    - genman 3y ago
      Germany was defeated and was rebuilt and the tools to reshape the European political landscape from within was first ECSC and later European Union. Yes, US military presence works as some stabilizing mechanism but it wouldn't have been enough without European mutual political framework. EU leaders mistakenly thought that they can have the same success with Russia but they didn't take into account the fact that Russian new president had completely misaligned interests.
3y ago

lawlessone 3y ago

>The strategy of economic integration as a way to reduce military tension has worked very well in many other instances. It mostly worked within in the EU because you needed meaningfully adopt certain standards to join the market. Russia didn't have to do any of that and by the time more people started to understand the problem developing they already had leverage.

treflop 3y ago
Russia is a gigantic country with vast resources that isn’t bordered by Europe, and more than once it was a superpower and it was a superpower against another gigantic country. On the other hand, Europe consists of small countries trying to fit in with their neighbors. It’s like thinking the scooter kids are gonna be hanging with the skater kids. It’s not that they are inherently that different, but they have such different mindsets that it means they see their positions in the world differently.
- ivan_gammel 3y ago
  >Russia is a gigantic country with vast resources that isn’t bordered by Europe Maybe you should look at the map before writing such nonsense. 1. Russia does have borders both with EU and NATO. Norway, Finland, Baltic states, Poland. 2. Russia is geographically in Europe too. Most of its population and the capital are in Europe. Among European countries it does have the largest territory, population and nuclear arsenal, but it is not even the biggest economy. Ex-superpower is not a now-superpower. Mindset-wise it has a lot in common with other EU members.
  - treflop 3y ago
    Obviously Russia borders Europe. How do you do a land invasion of Europe without bordering Europe? But Russia isn’t Germany whose borders are completely dominated by Europe. Putin obviously thinks Russia should still be a superpower. People get that mentality when they see the past and think they deserve it again. Holy shit people love the “glory days.” There are conflicts that have been going on for millennia like in the Middle East and they fight today because their ancestors fought. People have a hard on for the past. You’ll teach someone command line Git starting out and they love it and they will never bother with a GUI because they value their experience more than practicality.

wrs 3y ago

Well, it works OK as long as the countries involved don’t get taken over by a demagogue, dictator, or whatever the Brexit movement was. In other words, rationality and cooperation go out the window. Which turns out to be a pretty common failure mode according to 21st century evidence.

jacquesm 3y ago
Indeed, and it's a serious problem. There are really only two ways out of this mess and one is not at all like the other and both are roughly equally likely by my reckoning.
benterix 3y ago
> Well, it works OK I believe the problem is that the premise is false. It works OK for a part of the population that feels comfortable with it. When you look closer at the root causes they are not immaterial and often boil down to people not wanting immigrants around them. If you are progressive you can just dismiss their outdated attitude - and this is what center- and left-wing politicians were doing for decades. Ignoring and ridiculing these folks caused the radical right to grow stronger in several European countries. Putin knows that and that's why he is sending more and more of them to Belarussian borders.

christkv 3y ago

I don’t think there is proof for that at all. It’s more likely due to the countries all being democracies

beefield 3y ago
This. Amartya Sen has claimed that two actual democracies have never been at war between each other. At least I find hard to find significant counterexamples in history. (Not sure about the Falkland war. And I think Finland was technically at war with UK in the second world war) I think the democratic and developed countries need to change their game plan pretty soon. The countries that are willing to join the club should be offered actual help to develop. By actual help I mean trade treaties that are designed to benefit those countries, not developed countries. Includes IP vaiwers, duties that protect local industries etc. The countries that do not want to join, (including China and Orban's Hungary) then again, should be punished in all ways possible. Massive duties to commodities and other products imported from those countries, as a starter. Open democracies do not need to be nice guys if they are threatened. Must not be, to be more precise. See Popper and paradox of tolerance.
- klassik 3y ago
  >Not sure about the Falkland war Do you mean the war between Argentina and England? Argentina was not only under a military dictatorship then, but the war was definitely triggered by the military junta.
- dilyevsky 3y ago
  Off the top of my head: 1. karabakh war (at least the first one) 2. six day war 3. turkey's invasion of cyprus 4. some yugoslav wars
- lr1970 3y ago
  > This. Amartya Sen has claimed that two actual democracies have never been at war between each other. At least I find hard to find significant counterexamples in history. Off the top of my head -- a war of 1812 between Great Britain and United States. Both countries were democracies at that time.

freedomben 3y ago

Indeed. There's a common saying that sort of derives from Frédéric Bastiat that "where goods cross borders, armies don't." Trade and economic dependence is the best deterrent of war that there is. That doesn't necessarily mean that it stops all war, but it definitely raises the cost of war and costs matter. It's also IMHO the most productive and ethical way to reduce/prevent war. Maybe they shouldn't have allowed something so fundamental as energy to become a dependence, but generally speaking the principles are sound.

tivert 3y ago
> Indeed. There's a common saying that sort of derives from Frédéric Bastiat that "where goods cross borders, armies don't." Trade and economic dependence is the best deterrent of war that there is. It's a saying whose truth has been greatly exaggerated, and the people who foolishly believe it have a tendency to make themselves vulnerable. > That doesn't necessarily mean that it stops all war, but it definitely raises the cost of war and costs matter. Costs apparently matter less than you think.
- amarant 3y ago
  GP has a point. While economic integration didn't work this time, it has in the past. Been a while since you last saw Germany invading Poland for example. Or France. Costs obviously do matter, but no-one is saying it's a fool-proof means of control. Also I think part of the problem in this case is that Europe failed to make Russia sufficiently financially dependent on Europe. Instead Europe made itself dependent on Russia for energy, which means that the pacifying forces of trade are leveraged more towards Europe than towards Russia. Geopolitics are complicated and messy. The more I think about them the more my head hurts.
  - tivert 3y ago
    > GP has a point. While economic integration didn't work this time, it has in the past. Been a while since you last saw Germany invading Poland for example. Or France. Is that because of economic integration, or other reasons? Since WWII, Germany and France sat on the same side of a military alliance for more than a generation against a formidable foe (which would obviously change some attitudes), and there have been other ideological developments in those countries at well (e.g. the degree that Germans are pacifists as a reaction to Naziism).

smsm42 3y ago

It worked when both sides wanted it to work. When one side's fundamental strategy includes fomenting tension as an integral component, no amount of concessions and friendly gestures from the other side would be enough to reduce it.