> there's literally been no reason to fight. But how does that differ to WWII? Sure, reparations, polish corridor (not a reason at all), rise of fascism - but

> there's literally been no reason to fight. But how does that differ to WWII? Sure, reparations, polish corridor (not a reason at all), rise of fascism - but those things happened in a Europe that had sworn it would never fight again at Versailles. LN failed impressively because it was oriented around arms control and security pacts, rather than trade agreements - it attempted to treat the symptoms, not the cause. NATO isn't dissimilar, but functions as the economic end of things is looked after by the EU. Fundamentally, it's hard to either prove or disprove, as the only reference points we have are other similar historical contexts, but my money is on trade being a great enabler. Worked for the Romans, until they switched to military dominance (because they ended up with a plutarchy due to the traders (senators) getting richer, who ended up with private armies), at which point it all fell apart. Again, many other factors, and all of history is a great big murk from which we have to try to model what happens today.