War between European countries in the next five years?

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23 May 2010, 2:35 pm

Civil War isn't unlikely, in nations that take a severe battering from the euro-crisis. International war less so, because the collapse of the Euro by itself won't damage every nation, and isn't really grounds enough to start a proper shooting war. Who do you start it against anyway? Brussels itself? A battalion of peevish French farmers could do that. The point (and problem) with the E.U is that there is no central evil you could destroy to end its dominance by military force, because its driving force is the collection of pro-European members of national parliaments from ALL the member nations.

However, treaties and agreements have existed before now to stop European wars, and they have failed, been ignored, or been twisted to darker purpose, and pretty much all the member nations do still retain national forces, most of them quite capable, some of them quite impressive. Therefore its not impossible to start a war against another nation in Europe. The difficult part would be to win it properly.

Personally I would be quite unperturbed by European war breaking out, as I benefit from a substantial tank-trap (the Channel).

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Cyanide
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23 May 2010, 2:49 pm

I think the most that will happen is that some countries might try to leave the EU. I highly doubt there'll be any full-blown wars.

Master_Pedant
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23 May 2010, 2:57 pm

ruveyn wrote:

Europe is so economically integrated that a war between European powers could not be managed. On of the reasons why Germany became a war-maker following the the Versailles Treaty was that she was isolated, looted and cut out from the other nations. This created just the situation for the Man on a Horse to ride in and Right The Wrong Done to the Fatherland.

No such thing happened following WW2.

ruveyn

For once, I agree with you.

codarac
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23 May 2010, 5:50 pm

Master_Pedant wrote:

xenon13 wrote:

There was a war in Yugoslavia. Don't give me "the Serbs and Croats always hated each other", I could say the same thing about the Germans and the French or whatever others that have warred over the centuries. People are going to look for scapegoats. There's going to be violence, you can take that to the bank.

What's going on are these countries going off a cliff. There's going to be a great deflation. The plutocracy is being openly sadistic. Naturally, if you have a situation where people might lynch the plutocrats they'll tell them to blame the krauts or whoever else.

The Greek situation has been used to whip up animosity against nations. There has been anti-Greek propaganda in the media and this already has led to mutual resentment. The attacks on Greeks have been personal and civilisational.

The economies of both those regions were nowhere near as developed as Western Europe, nor were their governments (weak, ineffectual, post-communist states) anywhere near as competent as the ones in Western Europe. If there is going to be any hatred in Western Europe, it will be directed against the Muslim underclass and Eastern European immigrants (if the UK is any precedent), not each other.

Hatred is a vague term. How would you define it?
Do the Islamic terrorist attacks that took place in London and Madrid qualify as "hatred" in your book?

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23 May 2010, 7:06 pm

Master_Pedant wrote:

I do worry about rightwing nationalists and militant Islamophobes getting close to those in power, though.

That has no chance of happening in the UK - the BNP (who aren't right-wing at all - they're left-wing economically with a racist bent) got soundly defeated in the last general election. They have one European Parliament seat. Nor is it likely to happen in the Republic of Ireland as Sinn Féin (left-wing Irish republicans) are despised there.

In mainland Europe it probably will be a different story though.

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23 May 2010, 7:10 pm

codarac wrote:

Master_Pedant wrote:

xenon13 wrote:

Hatred is a vague term. How would you define it?
Do the Islamic terrorist attacks that took place in London and Madrid qualify as "hatred" in your book?

I define hatred (in the context I used it) in the sense of the belief that the "Other ethnic groups are mainly inhumane monsters destroying our native land and must be expelled".

I would define terrorist attacks as motivated by a hatred of Western powers.

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23 May 2010, 7:12 pm

If they don't like living in the West they can always move to a country where you can legally marry your sister and the age of consent is 6.

Me, I quite like being able to live in a country where I can drink to my heart's content, eat pork and leer at women.

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23 May 2010, 8:13 pm

Tequila wrote:

Me, I quite like being able to live in a country where I can drink to my heart's content, eat pork and leer at women.

In no particular order and sometimes all at once.

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24 May 2010, 1:35 pm

Tequila wrote:

In mainland Europe it probably will be a different story though.

Already happened. Take a look to the south, you got Shitaly controlled by a right wing populist, supported by lega nord and other more extreme political parties, Austria had Haider and Co, and in Holland there is a rightwing party that won largely because some f-head christian party implemented that load of crap "Make it illegal to criticize Islam" UN thing that was sponsored by China.

as*holes and political parties like that is the reason why i do not want a Euro constitution, people like that should NOT be able to become president of Europe.

To give you a comparison: George Bush is a f-ing leftwing commy in comparison to some rightwing partys that want to enter the Euro parliament. Its like WW2 was lost...

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24 May 2010, 2:26 pm

You all have too narrow of definitions of what "war" is.

War does not have to be what it was in the past. two armies marching against each other, with planes overhead dropping bombs and such.
you might as well confine your definition to the swordsmen, pikemen, and cavalry of the middle ages.

War doesn't even have to be between two countries anymore... it only has to be between two groups that identify themselves as different on a specific point.

Terrorism is war.
Economic protectionism is war.

Open your minds people, it's not a case of whether there will be war in Europe... it's what are the current effects of the war that is going on, and how will the face of this war change as the next five years go by.

The war is just more or less one-sided at the moment... most of the members of the other side don't even know it's going on yet... but wait a bit.

How long till the Greek peasants realize that they can do exactly what Osama Bin Laden is doing?
the Greek farmers have the fertilizer AND the diesel fuel... what more do they need?

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24 May 2010, 6:20 pm

Ichinin wrote:

[quote="Tequila"and in Holland there is a rightwing party that won largely because some f-head christian party implemented that load of crap "Make it illegal to criticize Islam" UN thing that was sponsored by China.

The Party for Freedom? I don't think Geert Wilders is in the league of genuine fascists - all he wants is that the liberal traditions of the Netherlands are respected by all the population. I don't see a problem with that.

Although I am against UKIP (my party)'s burqa ban I believe that we need to secure our liberalism. It won't just come to us.

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24 May 2010, 6:21 pm

Exclavius wrote:

How long till the Greek peasants realize that they can do exactly what Osama Bin Laden is doing?
the Greek farmers have the fertilizer AND the diesel fuel... what more do they need?

And they make better food, too.

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24 May 2010, 6:25 pm

Greece does also have a long and distinguished history in fighting occupations for the last few centuries. Turks, Germans, Italians, communists

The ottomons were a bit of a b***h to get rid of compared to the german/italians though

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24 May 2010, 7:22 pm

ruveyn wrote:

On of the reasons why Germany became a war-maker following the the Versailles Treaty was that she was isolated, looted and cut out from the other nations. This created just the situation for the Man on a Horse to ride in and Right The Wrong Done to the Fatherland.

No such thing happened following WW2.

Middle East? Hellooooooooooooooooooooooo.

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Topcat16
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25 May 2010, 6:14 am

i;m interested in seeing what route south america will take, whether there'll be more chavez anti usa rhetoric, if mexico had a pro chavev president, who knows,

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25 May 2010, 6:22 am

Topcat16 wrote:

i;m interested in seeing what route south america will take, whether there'll be more chavez anti usa rhetoric, if mexico had a pro chavev president, who knows,

The nations of South America (with the possible exception of Argentina) never partook of the Protestant Reformation. I expect they will be backward for the next thousand years.

ruveyn

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