Peace Beyond Borders: How the EU Brought Peace to Europe and How Exporting It Would End Conflicts Around the World

How did the world''s most warlike continent become its most peaceful one? Europe is usually in the news for the wrong reasons. Economic crises, terrorist attacks, votes to leave, and allegations that some countries are too powerful, all give the impression of a continent in a mess. Yet Europe has never been a safer or more prosperous place. Since 1945, the wars between neighbours that were once an annual event in Western Europe no longer seem possible. Mehta dismisses the usual explanation for this; that the United States acts as a sort of military referee, through NATO, preventing Spain from invading Gibraltar or the Walloons and Flemish fighting a civil war over Belgium. Rather, Mehta argues that the process of political integration through the European Union has eliminated the reasons for conflict, and that this same model can be exported to Africa, The Americas, Asia, Australasia, and the Middle East and North Africa region, providing a promising glimpse of world peace. See more