I understand a fuller quote is "an unsinkable aircraft carrier of Chinese investment expansion". We have not yet reached the point where the ambition of European countries is to become a military base for China.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Gladio for some of the most shameless cases...
Second, do you really think that the solution that was given in the Balkans is good? Even today, many people are deeply unhappy about it.
Military buildup in Europe during 1945-1991, the vast scale of which dwarfs anything ever seen on planet earth.
The military deployments in Asia from 1930-1945 were larger than anything Europe saw from 1945-1991, by several fold. China alone had roughly four million soldiers active at the end of WW2. Japan had millions of soldiers and civilians stationed in China at the time they surrendered.
About ten million military personnel died in WW1. That one point alone puts to shame the scale of the Cold War. The US, Russia, British Empire, France, Italy mobilized nearly 40 million military forces during WW1. The Cold War was tiny by comparison. France by itself had 1.3 million soldiers killed. Russia had five million wounded soldiers. Including the two sides, over 60 million military personnel were involved in WW1.
USSRs occupation of the other half also kept "peace" there (and in conflict between the two sides would have escalated to a full global war, which was in nobody's interest).
Yugoslavia for example was only a state because the different nations were kept under the same rule. When that rule was gone, 60 years of "living together" didn't do anything to prevent ethnic tensions.
How things shape in 10 or 20 years is anybody's guess.
The ambitions of the USSR were a reason for war and they had plenty of military resources.
Actually history has shown that they didn't.
The original claim was that "NATO has probably done just as much to insure peace inside it's countries as the EU has.". The counterpoint was that the Balkan wars invalidated this claim. My response was that a single war in 70 years is hardly evidence against the original claim.
What's your line of argument here?
I didn't respond to the "thread of the argument" above, I responded directly to the smaller point made in your comment.
My point regarding the whole argument is in my longer comment above.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Pact_invasion_of_Czecho...
2: http://www.war-memorial.net/Soviet-Invasion-of-Hungary-3.111
If all sides are a bit unhappy it probably was a very good compromise.
I am sure there would not be any peace if the USA was the only country with nukes.
Only if you never bothered to ask the center- and left-inclined population of each country (which was quite substantial) -- and ignored the protests against them.
And with the help of a few interventions (e.g. in Italy) and dictatorships (e.g. in Greece) imposed when needed to keep some pro-US goons in government.
Just how much of the European "protest culture" of the 1970s and 1980s actually grew organically, without covert Soviet backing?
A, yes, it was the Russians all along, which, retroactively also proves that they control the world now from some building in St. Petersburg. And when they get some friendly lackey in power like Yeltsin again and be buddies and everything, there will be another enemy du jour, arabs (just not the Saudis) are good for that.
It's not like there ever was a very strong European left movement (or an American one for that matter), or that people in different countries in Europe have devoted their lives, risked careers, gone to prison, even tortured or executed for being pro-communist (or perhaps they did all that because they were paid)...
Or, if they happened to be in Eastern Europe, for being anti-communist... funny how that works.
I say categorically: no non-ideological ex-Eastern Blocer wishes to return to the lower standard of living and simple lack of options imposed by Soviet rule, regardless of what hardship the iron fist of US hegemony imposes.
And serving as a buffer against the territorial ambitions of the USSR for 45 years, for one of the least shameful cases ...
https://thesefootballtimes.co/2018/08/22/aston-villa-slavia-...