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.
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.
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.
Stick and carrots. Both are required.
not to mention that china was on a reasonably good trajectory until a certain yellow bear ascended to the throne
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.
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.
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.
Off the top of my head -- a war of 1812 between Great Britain and United States. Both countries were democracies at that time.
This is a hard one since the guy managed to do his trick once Hungary already joined all clubs. On the other hand, there's little hope anybody can manage to overthrow him anytime soon, and in any case restoring democracy in Hungary will take decades.
1. karabakh war (at least the first one)
2. six day war
3. turkey's invasion of cyprus
4. some yugoslav wars
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.
Economic integration wasn't what kept the peace, it was probably the military integration.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied-occupied_Germany
[1] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/9/10/infographic-us-mili...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Yes, this was the widely believed theory prior to 1914 for why another large, Europe-wide war wouldn't break out.
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.
