Something positive, for a change

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Hardly any wars in Europe since the end of WW2 in Europe; Greece, Croatia, Bosnia, Yugoslavia, Kosovo, Ukraine and Russia (1, 2) experienced war in Europe only* - over a period of 70 years. This is unparalleled since the invention of European-style states. Even the pre-WWI period wasn't as peaceful for as long.

War is more widely considered immoral and wrong than ever before 1918, and more aspects of it have been banned (with widespread -though not perfect- respect for the bans) than ever before.

The countries of the European Union enjoy security and peace (at home) with military expenses of merely about 1.65% GDP and with a population of roughly 510 million less than two million serve in the military at any time. The drain on the civilian society by the military has been for years smaller than ever during the previous 300 years at minimum.

Warfare and terrorism have a negligible influence on mortality in all of Europe today. Even the Ukraine has suffered only about 5,000 dead in a year of war, at a population of about 44 million (about 1.14 in 10,000 - less than the rate of deaths by genitourinary diseases in Germany, or example).

Refugees or war -such as the roughly 2.3 million displaced people from Donbas- generally receive sufficient support or have sufficient income wherever they have fled to.

Trade and travel in Europe are largely unimpeded by warfare.

Save for Belarus no country in Europe that remained largely unaffected by recent wars is being considered to be unfree.** We can be dissatisfied with certain government overreach, but overall we're still quite fine.

example; global freedom rating (c) Freedom House

Today wars and oppression are so extremely rare in Europe that they're the outliers, the deviations from the norm. We thus neglect paying attention to the boring yet enjoyable normal state of affairs; peace and freedom. Our newspapers and TV news don't have headlines like "Peace in Europe", but "War in the Ukraine", and it can lead us to pay excessive attention to the outliers.

S O

defence_and_freedom@gmx.de

*: Not counting Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia because normally the Caucasus mountains are considered the frontier of Europe. I also excepted WW2 remnant skirmishes and insurgencies (anti-Stalinist resistance during the 40's and early 50's) and terrorism such as in Northern Ireland. A small insurgency in Macedonia and elsewhere and the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia weren't counted as wars either. For a list with many smaller conflicts, see here.
**: Albeit Hungary and Belarus aren't on a good trajectory with their domestic policies.

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