1870-71: Franco-Prussian War, 433K dead 1914-1918: WWI, 17.6M dead, including 116K Americans 1939-1945: WWII, 54M dead in Europe, including 277K Americans 1949: NATO founded 1949-Present: No major European wars 2018: "NATO's stupid. What does it do for us anyway?"
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Sergey actually makes a good point. It is impossible to separate the events to figure out if one would've worked without the other.
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Technically impossible to know for certain, of course. Just like any alternative history. However, there were major wars in Asia after both US and Soviet atomic tests, but not in Europe. NATO credibly extending American deterrence probably had something to do with that.
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If we count Korea and Vietnam as "major wars", why aren't the Yugoslav Wars "major wars" in Europe?
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Many more casualties, involvement of a great power on either side. But there isn't an accepted definition of major war--besides bigger and deadlier than a non-major war--so one could arguably draw the line in a few different places. Still, my point's about size, not the term.
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Yes the size of the war was smaller but the death count approached 150000 which is not that small of a number.
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Also NATO did do a series of air stirkes
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US has military bases EVERYWHERE, and nobody argues with them! But US gets everyone else to pay for something US would do anyway. We are all part of the same US Empire. I’m sure you’ve noticed. Do you think NATO would defend us against the USA?
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Because the US used a *lot* of air bases in West Germany, even just after the war...up until 1957 (after the UK began their testing program), bombs dropped from planes were all the nuclear capability that anyone had.
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"NATO's supreme allied commander is always an American" I think I read that somewhere recently. Maybe that could be why nukes had more to do with preventing war than a military alliance between imperial powers?
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Rather, not why but how. In the same way it did in 1945-48, before NATO: by implied threat of US retaliation. It worked the other way, too. It's unlikely that the US would have come to the rescue of Budapest (1956) or Prague (1968) even if the Warsaw Pact did not exist.
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Good points but without NATO or the Warsaw Pact, what would stop non nuclear countries from going to war? Especially since you think US would not have added Budapest or Prague anyway.
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I take the point! That's like saying, though, that the Warsaw Pact helped prevent wars in (Eastern) Europe, and that therefore it was a good thing. The absence of war in Europe was a result of bipolarity, which can only be understood in the context of the nuclear revolution.
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I think this has to be seen in combination with the German question. Both NATO and the Warsaw Pact prevented a resurgent Germany by keeping their zone in line. And that the US would stay in Western Europe for decades was by now way sure, seeing how Eisenhower wanted out quickly.
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