(I put "forcing" in quotes because quite often it's more of an excuse than a reason.)
[0] - http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/06/07/archipelago-and-atomic-...
I guess we'll never[0] know. Human societies are a very complex system, so it's hard to pinpoint the real, exact cause of a particular geopolitical event - a cause that if it was hypothetically removed from the timestream, would change the outcome of that event or prevent it from happening.
[0] - for a practical, pre-singularity definition of "never"
Even ignoring psychopaths, I have my pet theory too. It goes like this: "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to be separated from it by enough layers of abstraction". So for instance, the moment some military decides to automate away people in the silos I'll start being very scared.
EDIT: I guess you mean the phrase "Almost only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades"?
Obviously having massive troop presence prevented war with the soviets, but it can't be overestimated what stuff like the European Coal and Steel Community, the EEC and other following integration steps did after WWII in terms of getting France and Germany to "need" each other, instead of wanting "revenge" and repayment.
The EEC and the EU haven't kept Europe from having another two or three major wars since the fall of Nazi Germany. (Whether they could have started more world wars after the end of their empires is less clear). Outside powers imposing alliances that prevented the usual suspects from going to war with each other kept this from happening. Today, NATO keeps this from happening.
Some of their implicit goals were harmonising French and German interests so they wouldn't want to go to war again.
The closest I know of is the Cyprus conflict in 1974, but Greece wasn't an EU member then.
What are the two of three major wars which they have had? (Quite puzzled, as I have studied this a little).
He isn't saying those wars happened. He is saying the preventive cause is other then the EEC and the EU.
There's the League of Nations / United Nations model, which tends to be fairly constructive.
There's the "citizen of the world" / cosmopolitan model, which has tended to have egalitarian and idealistic overtones.
There's the Mont Pelerin Society / Atlas Network "Free Trade / Invisible Hand" globalisation model, which seeks benefits for transnational corporations and the plutocracy, without any safety nets or provisions for the mass of the world's population. This viewpoint is strongly adopted among many who align as "right", contrasted with left. Generally, neoliberalism. See Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, George Monbiot, Naomi Oreskes, or Bill McKibben as among its critics.
The populist conservative mode of xenophobic / nonalignment / isolationist tendencies is another element, and among the few which are specifically opposed to international engagement. It's hardly specific to any one nation -- you'll find it expressed among the populist conservative factions of the UK, France, Germany, much of the Islam world, Japan, Russia, and the United States, just off the top of my head.
And it's okay to call it "globalism" like everyone else does.
a land war hasn't occurred in Europe simply because the US and the USSR stalemated each other. Once the USSR ceased to be trade had a tendency to convince people having stuff was fun.
1) barring the US' selective rebuilding of the West German economy after the war.
(1) is being open to commerce and immigration for law-abiding entrants, and nurturing friendships with other nations while respecting their sovereignty. This is considered a good thing by moral standards and economic theory. Also the George Washington school of though: "peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations, entangling alliances with none"
(2) is starting with closed borders to the detriment of a country's citizens but giving more power to leaders and creating a system of favors and alliances, interventionism, adventurism etc. this is what create wars in the first place. Let's call it the Trump school of thought.
Looks like this kind of deal is more (2): giving up sovereignty though alliances, for no benefit to the common citizen, but increased power for the powers at play.
Given that, as far as I know, none of the above ever launched a global war of domination, nor murdered millions of people for belonging to a specific ethnicity, I'm pretty sure that none of those guys were Hitler.
The problem is that the opposition has cried Hitler so many times that no one (other than their fellow rabid partisans) pays the slightest bit of attention any more. Certainly I don't. Nor does Donald Trump. A nice guy like Mitt Romney gets upset when people call him a Nazi and tries to prove that he isn't one. Trump doesn't give a shit. He's the honey badger of candidates.
That's going to suck pretty bad if an actual Hitler ever comes along. I think there's some kind of old fable about that, isn't there?
Note: I do not like Donald Trump and am not planning on voting for him. I expect him to win handily, though, so we'd better hope he's not, you know, actually Hitler.
You took it a bridge too far - I don't recall many people actually calling Mitt Romney anything like a Nazi. He was accused of being a wealthy elitist and vicious corporate capitalist who openly despised the poor and was so out of touch with humanity that he had his emotions simulated by an algorithm. But not "Literally Hitler."
Your memory is selective. Romney was called a Nazi (or compared to one) by actual Democrat Party officials. Ryan was compared to Goebbels. Nikki Haley was compared to Eva Braun. Romney wasted a bunch of time demanding apologies, etc.
It doesn't matter -- as I said, no one pays attention to it anymore, really, and Trump, at least, understands that.
Trump is more of a William Jennings Bryan or (at worst) an Andrew Jackson. And likewise, it'd be best if Hillary proved not to be an Evita Peron.
It is true he claim to be non-interventionist, but on the other hand he nurtures antagonization, so what good does it do if he ends up forcing interventions through provocations?
He has also openly proposed creating systems/actions on trade that correspond to (2) (e.g. comments on Ford).
Can't have it both ways.
The "western world" is not a person. "The western world" does not have opinions. The people who make up the western world have read about Colonialism in textbooks, and they've been taught it was terrible. Why should these people want to be victims of it?
> "Can't have it both ways."
As frustrating as you may consider apparent inconsistency and hypocrisy to be, I think you'll find that there is no law of the universe that actually prevents it.
What do you think of affirmative action?
> I think you'll find that there is no law of the universe that actually prevents it.
I meant that as a moral statement. As in "you shouldn't do something bad." There is no universal preventing it.
>"you shouldn't"
Why shouldn't Americans enact trade policy that is best for Americans?
Reread your own comment and think about it :)
> Why shouldn't Americans enact trade policy that is best for Americans?
Because Americans have forced others to act against their own self-interests. Read about opening of Japan.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perry_Expedition#Threat_of_for...
If everyone does that, the world will turn shitty quite soon.
Similarly, resource exploitation occurs in countries whose governments are willing to allow their resources to be exploited. It happened hundreds of years before any free trade agreements were signed, and it will continue to happen until those governments change their practices.
No, they were not the "same economic doctrine", or anything like it.
(It pisses me off in my country in particular, because a lot of people complain about paying to EU not realizing that we're still a net beneficiary, and just how much infrastructure around them was built or upgraded by EU money. The playgrounds they take their kids to. The roads and bridges they drive over. I mean, given how much money our local "entrepreneurs" steal from EU grants all the time, people should be at least a little bit grateful.)
There is police cooperation in Schengen countries because yeah, you can pretty much just stroll over the border. But the timing was open borders, then interpol.