Sidestepping War – Eastern Europe’s Long Peace 1945 - 1991 (From Peace To War #1)
The Long Peace - Preserved part of the Iron Curtain in the Czech Republic (Credit: Marcin Szala)

Sidestepping War – Eastern Europe’s Long Peace 1945 - 1991 (From Peace To War #1)

There is no doubt that the Russian invasion of Ukraine and continued prosecution of the war has set some very dangerous precedents. One of the most worrisome is that the taboo of large wars in Europe has been broken. This is a direct threat to Europe’s stability because it has the potential to unleash another period of violent conflict. The last time this happened, Europe came closer to complete destruction than at any time in history. It is worth remembering that Europe had a long period of peace prior to the First World War. This era was marked by great strides in economic, industrial, and cultural development.

Peace gives birth to prosperity and prosperity provides an incentive for nations to avoid wars. This does not mean that Europe completely sidestepped wars in the century between the Congress of Vienna in 1815 and World War I in 1914. On the contrary, there were many wars in Europe, but none of these engulfed the entire continent. The closest they came was due to the revolutions in 1848. Compared to the two World Wars, the fighting was contained. The same could be said for the Wars of German Unification and the Balkan Wars. This period of relative peace came to an end in the most violent manner possible beginning in 1914 and did not end until 1945. 

Keeping The Peace – A Tenuous Process

Contemporary Europe is largely an outcome from the reaction to two World Wars. The long and successful unification project of the European Union was, as it still is today, an effort to ensure large wars in Europe never happen again. Whether or not that will be the case beyond the Ukraine-Russia War no one knows. What has become apparent is how remarkable the post-1945 period was in European history due to the absence of large wars. The Ukraine-Russia War makes Europeans long for the peaceful period many of them took for granted. The phrase “You don’t know what you got it until its gone” applies to the mindset of contemporary Europeans. Many are shocked by the return of large wars which had supposedly been relegated to history books. That is no longer the case. The Ukraine-Russia War has been a return to the kind of history Europe managed to avoid much longer than anyone could have imagined.

One day many years from now, historians will look back at the period from 1945 – 2014 in Europe as unusually peaceful. Save for the Soviet invasions of Hungary in 1956, Czechoslovakia in 1968, and the Yugoslav Wars form 1991 – 1998, Europe largely enjoyed peace almost seventy years of peace. This helped create unprecedented prosperity across the continent. Even for Eastern Europe, the period was remarkable in just how few armed conflicts occurred. Of course, this came at the cost of being under the Soviet thumb. As for the Yugoslav Wars, they are now viewed as a violent aberration. Many of the nations involved have thrived since those wars ended.

Croatia and Slovenia are now in the European Union, Montenegro is in much better shape than it was for many centuries. Kosovo won its independence and diplomatic recognition from much of the world. Even the biggest losers in the Yugoslav Wars have had a better-than-expected existence since those wars ended. Serbia has been largely stable with a decent economy. Politically, Bosnia and Herzegovina may still be a mess, but disputes have been resolved through diplomatic means. While tensions continue to threaten another conflict, cooler heads have prevailed. The Balkans is no longer a powder keg ready to explode. Because the Yugoslav Wars are still within living memory for most of the region’s inhabitants, this has been a powerful incentive to ensure peaceful resolution of disputes.

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Countries in the European Union (Credit: BBC)

Walled Off – Keeping War At A Distance

For the Balkans, the memories of the Yugoslav Wars are so horrific that either the successor states have decided to focus on economic progress in putting the past behind them or the memories of the conflicts were so horrific that those who experienced them dare not allow a repeat performance. The same could be said of Europe after the end of World War II, the apocalyptic nature of the fighting left the continent in shambles. Both western and eastern Europe focused on reconstruction, but in very different ways. Though there were times when war threatened to break out over Berlin, cooler heads prevailed due to fear of nuclear apocalypse and no one wanting to reexperience the same sort of destruction visited on Europe that had so recently occurred. The psychological trauma of World War II manifested itself to such an extent that it produced a peace dividend. The American military’s role in protecting Europe west of the Iron Curtain cannot be overlooked. There is no doubt that it helped keep the peace.

The closest Europe came to a complete combustion during the Cold War was in Berlin. Ironically, the Berlin Wall’s construction created the stability that had been lacking before then. For all its symbolism as divisive, the wall kept the two sides at a distance and delineated spheres of influence. There were no more showdowns at Checkpoint Charlie. West Berlin and West Germany were free to continue their economic development. East Germany was resigned to keeping its citizens locked inside a worker’s paradise and spying on them. The shadow of war hung over Europe, but the situation was manageable. Europeans now can look back to the Cold War with a fair amount of confidence that it might serve as a template to manage the relationship with Russia after the war in Ukraine comes to an end.

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Revolution in progress - Germans crossing the Berlin Wall in 1989 (Credit: Sue Mead)

Miraculous Feat - The Curtain Falls

The fall of the Berlin Wall and collapse of the Iron Curtain were strangely peaceful. World historical events that accord a complete change in ideological, political, economic, and cultural systems for an entire region hardly ever occur without massive violence. The incredible thing was just how little conflict resulted from the upheaval. The worst violence occurred Romania where somewhere between 700 -1300 were killed and 3,200 wounded in fighting during its nine-day revolution in December 1989. Considering that Mikhail Gorbachev could have decided to use Red Army troops stationed in Eastern Europe to quell uprisings, the change of system from communist totalitarianism to democratic capitalism was nothing short of miraculous. No one could possibly have predicted the lack of a violent counterrevolution. The situation would be somewhat similar in the Soviet Union two years later, but in the decades that followed extremely different.


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