Quote:
Originally Posted by Osem
You can't fault German logic but I can see a whole lot of anger and resentment building up in Europe whatever happens. I hope it doesn't get nasty.
|
that's not nearly as likely as some have recently suggested.
At the turn of the 20th century, it was accepted that a good old cavalry charge or a naval blockade was the next best thing to talking to your neighbours, if they wouldn't see things your way. Only after WW1, when it became clear that the industrial revolution had turned war into something else entirely, did nation states begin to think differently.
WW2 occurred thanks to a perfect storm of economic depression, crippling reparations and then an aggressively nationalist dictatorship that was prepared to return to the old notions of force majeure as an acceptable alternative to getting what you want at the negotiating table.
Even if Europe ends up in a serious depression, there are no lingering territorial disputes or throbbing injuries to national pride that would be likely to result in one European power chancing military action against another. Neither is there any obvious route by which a maniacal dictatorship might override any of the stable democracies that now exist across Europe.
Besides all that, Germany, to its credit, in all the negotiations on the Euro, has been hell-bent on avoiding any proposed solution that might lead to the recreation of the sort of hyper-inflation that ultimately led to the rise of Nazism.