Call me a pessimist but this is one of the main reasons I'm really disappointed about Brexit, whatever the EU's drawbacks.
The UN, WTO, EU, etc, are ineffective, bureaucratic messes, but no matter how bad they are, they're a better way of solving international disputes than the historical alternatives.
Western nationalists like to talk about how the cultures of the middle east are inherently violent, but seem to forget that the history of europe was a centuries-long bloodbath that eventually engulfed the entire world in horror and put us nearly on the brink of the extinction of all human life.
It's those alliances and international organizations that allowed us to step backwards from it. Solving our problems in courtrooms and at negotiating tables rather than on the battlefield.
I know someone who used to handle transporting goods around Europe and experienced the reduction of paperwork and inspection and costs and delays and so on, until he ended up with basically none. He says all the troubles he used to have that no longer exist utterly dwarf anything new.
I don't have much actual evidence, though.
It seems to be a constant that larger human organizations are simply impossible to reform effectively, so we're stuck with chaos. I don't think there's a solution for this, short of genetically-engineering humans to work better together, or else we would have found it over the past couple of millennia.
Introspection driven change is hard for every organization. Sometimes you just need a tantrum or external stimulus.
Instead, I think Brexit will happen, the EU won't reform, the economies of both will collapse, followed by the US's, and then China's, a massive world war will happen, and then life for the survivors will resemble scenes from "The Walking Dead".
Practically, even had the UN been built instead of the League, World War 2 probably would have still happened (Italy was on the Detente side in World War 1 and would have vetoed any anti-Germany resolution).
I think it's just that:
1. A weakened Europe has nothing left to fight over, and any war between two European countries would have resulted in the Soviet Union sweeping through, swallowing them all up
2. Even the "winning" side would be devastated due to Nuclear weapons.
3. Land has much less importance in a service/technology economy. Look at Singapore, for example.
The other thing that happened after WWII, which probably has a bigger impact on the lack of war, was that, rather than deciding which countries gets which land by plebiscites, the people who lived on the wrong side of the borders were simply deported en masse. Deportation of the Poles from Lwów, the Germans from Stettin, or the Finns from Karelia did a lot to dampen irredentist claims to those lands.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis#Crisis_en...
The problem is that sometimes those institutions overreach into areas that should be handled at a lower level. Arguably the British Parliament is more guilty of this than the EU and has control of things that are much more important to everyday life.
This is cleary true, but it doesn't follow that the right solution is to quit the union rather than reforming it. There are more options than rabid nationalism vs total financialization.
That's a funny way of defining 'interests'.
It is sad it only takes such a short time for people to forget.
I have met a couple of people who have experienced World War II, although most of them were only children at the time. I listened to stories of being woken in the middle of the night by sirens, and then spending the rest of the night in a bunker, unable to sleep, constantly being shaken by explosions. I cannot imagine what that must be like, but I know that I would not wish that on anyone.
Somebody once said that the only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history. So far, it looks like whoever said it was right.
British politic elites haven't been listening to the lowly for ages - They've done many things against the countryside English people for long, for example importing new workers in London and forcing multiculturalism on people who don't want it. I don't care whether it's good or bad for England to welcome extremely good Indian talents - If the People didn't want that, then don't do it, because it's how the democracy works. The Brexit vote is just a vote against the elites.
The cause of the war, if any, is not the Brexit as you pretend, but the divide between the People's opinions and their elites certainly causes a war.
Another thing. It's all a democracy theater. In France I'm persuaded the police is not doing its job. In a single day I could find cocaine and photograph a hundred of traffic infringements. A trained reporter could buy a gun. So why can't the police? We have police everywhere but I don't see them working, they sometimes kick a thief at 10 policemen against 1 civilian, or they themself jaywalk or use their sirens. Terrorism is the result of the police letting things go. It's a theater, they just have to wake up and do something to find criminal networks, but they want people to vote more extremist, so they'd rather not work.
Next time you have an opinion on which vote is right and which one is war, please also consider that the people only vote among a limited set of options. For example, in France, the next vote is for the president. No-one is asking the French people whether they want to limit the family visas, extend the refugee visas, add more education in poorer areas or get the police to work. No, the French people are just asked whether they want the same president (the one who didn't listen to 6 months of demonstrations, didn't improve economic results, created new taxes and searched 3200 Muslims without due diligence the week after the Bataclan attack), or whether they want to switch to someone (Le Pen - extreme right) who will bark against immigrants. It's an extremely narrow choice. I'm not sure whether an incompetent president is a good thing.
Is democracy about pandering to a minority who happen to be very opinionated on the matter? I can not think of a single vote that has democratically rejected multiculturalism or even immigration. At the last election people mostly voted for parties that promise to control numbers, and are broadly in favour of immigration.
Ultimately people had many of reasons for voting for Brexit, which may well have included bashing the elites. But in a democracy we do not decide policy on the basis of perception of a referendum but by normal parliamentary democracy.
WWIII will probably start with what will look an awful lot like the Forth Crusade.
Edit: obviously I meant fourth, and I don't mean this from the religious perspective, just the European involvement in conflicts in the Middle East.
More seriously, I don't see the West responding to a call from the Pope to reconquer Jerusalem.