Comment by svara
1 year ago
That France and Germany are now good neighbors is a miracle.
It's possible because wise humans on both sides realized that the law of retaliation would cause a never ending cycle.
I worry that this sort of wisdom might be in short supply these days.
> That France and Germany are now good neighbors is a miracle.
It was not because of wise humans as if humans suddenly learned wisdom. It was because they both realized instead of being empires acquiring territory, they had instead been turned into players between the US and the Soviet Union who were both much stronger than either of them and that war would end up completely devastating both of them without any benefits.
Cynicism may sometimes seem smart, in this case it leads you to stupid conclusions.
While another war between France and Germany would have been unlikely for the reasons you state, it absolutely wasn't a given that the countries would develop cordial relations given their shared history. I call that a miracle. It's something we owe to de Gaulle, Giscard d'Estaing, Helmut Schmidt, François Mitterrand, Helmut Kohl and others -- others in their place may very well have chosen a different path.
History is full of examples of countries being hostile to each other even though cooperation might be beneficial in the long run. In fact, it's probably true for the Israel/Palestine war as well.
A few things emerged after WWII that probably helped keep the peace:
* democracy
* capitalism
* US military presence
* common European allies
* a shared dislike of communism
* a need to focus internally to rebuild destroyed infrastructure