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Comment by maaaats | Hacker News Reader

Whatever one may think of the politics or if one's country should join/leave, it's absolutely true that EU has been a big factor in keeping the peace between European nations for decades. The Nobel Peace Prize to EU got a lot of criticism because of politics, but I think it was important to show that EU has helped keep the peace.

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From what deeps analysis does this certainty come from? Seems like a propaganda point to me. Of course we cannot say what would have happened without the EU or how that would have come to pass, but I think the burden is on your side for showing that Europe could have gone to war without the EU.

If the question 'why peace?' was come at in a different context, in my opinion the EU would simply not rank as a primary cause. It would be something like (in order)

  - Mutually Assured Destruction
  - US/Soviet military dominance
  - German Holocaust Shame after WW2
  - Rising living standards/post war cultural revolution.
  - End of Empire as a plausible goal for a nation

Furthermore, the UK wasn't a member for decades, and I don't think war was viewed as a possibility at the time it did join.

Well said!

I know there has been intra-nation peace in western Europe since the end of WWII, but how do we know it was due to the EU?

Both the peace and the EU would seem to as easily explained by the post war situation where European nations were now second tier economicly, and threatened by a big external nation. The reward for war was no longer there, and the need for cooperation was high.

All of your points also existed before the second world war. Russia was already a big empire, other big empires existed throughout the history of Europe. That never stopped European countries from attacking each other. Basically, almost everything else has staid the same, the only change was the EU and its predecessors came into existence after WW2. That's certainly not a proof (it's impossible to proof such thins without a alternative-history-viewer-machine, which hasn't been developed so far) but it is a very strong hint.

I don't think either one of those was true after after WW1.

Russia, though large, was not regarded as a serious military threat to Europe. When attacked by Russia, Poland (!) beat Russia in the 1920's and gained half of the Ukraine and half of Belarus in the subsequent peace treaty.

An although a European nation was no longer the world largest economy, they were still regarded as the powers that mattered. The Washington Naval Treaty on arms control between the wars even gave the US a ship allocation on par with a European nation.

The world at the time still revolved around Europe and the actions of European powers. To be premininet in Europe was to lead the world.

This has been the longest period of Peace in Western Europe in history by a massive margin. That's evidence. Non top tier countries used to fight all the time in Europe before.

No, that's correlation, not evidence. :)

Yes it is correlation but then there's not such thing as evidence in social sciences. Correlation is all we've got.

> European nations were now second tier economicly, and threatened by a big external nation.

Wasn't this also true for eg WW1?

Even with the same actors

Great question!

I don't think either one was true the case after after WW1.

Russia, though large, was not regarded as a serious military threat to Europe. When attacked by Russia, Poland (!) beat the snot out of Russia in the 1920's and gained half of the Ukraine and half of Belarus in the subsequent peace treaty.

An although a European nation was no longer the world largest economy, they were still regarded as the ones that mattered. The world at the time still revolved around Europe and the actions of European powers. To be premininet in Europe was to lead the world.

> keeping the peace between European nations for decades

It really doesn't do anyone any favours to make claims like this; the breakup of Yugoslavia and the associated genocides were hideous:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakup_of_Yugoslavia

(cards on table: I'm very pro-EU)

Yugoslavia wasn't part of the EU, so it doesn't apply here. Fact is no EU country attacked another EU country since the EU (and its predecessors) came into existence. Before that time the same countries attacked each other on a fairly regular schedule.

And they weren't EU countries, were they?

I don't buy this argument. There was a long period of peace after Waterloo in 1815. After WW1 the powers of Europe were still big players on the world stage and Germany still felt it had some sort of imperialist destiny to fulfill. After world war two Europe was exhausted and reliant on the usa for protection from the warsaw pact.

Can we really say that it's the EU though? Europe has many international organizations that include member nations. Is the EU responsible or NATO or the UN or a simple exhaustion of war and extreme nationalism? The EU as it exists today has been alive fewer than 30 years! That's a blip in time.

Europe will remain strong, regardless of this, won't it?

> Can we really say that it's the EU though?

For some conflicts, yes. The Good Friday agreement in Ireland is a legal fiction, only possible because of the EU. Basically, the border vanishes because both sides are members of the EU and thus, via the EU have the right to move across that border at any time for any purpose.

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