[danielmorozoff]

pre-WWI / WWII had its fair share of military alliances. None of those alliances were threatened and we know how that turned out.

Imho I think the threat of greater force does not prevent nations from taking drastic actions when pushed against a wall.

Civil unrest is caused by large unemployment especially of the young, which in turn leads to nationalistic and isolationist policies breeding bigotry and violence that are seized upon by demagogues. These are warning signs of something to come. The weird thing is they seem to be popping up all over both in eastern and western europe over the course of the last decade.

The US election in turn I think will definitely tilt the balance. From what i have seen it is not looking good on this side of the pond either.

[ZenoArrow]

I agree with you that high unemployment leads to civil unrest, and you can only hope that trustworthy individuals can fill the power vacuum that leads to. It's not a completely hopeless situation, you've got groups like Podemos in Spain pushing forward, and I think the likes of Corbyn in the UK and Sanders in the US represent the interests of the working class and middle class of their respective countries (even if Sanders doesn't get elected, he seems to be inspiring more people to get involved in the political process to push for the things that benefit the majority).

As for isolationism leading to war, I think this I think has been blown out of proportion. Of course in extreme examples it can happen, but I'd suggest at most we'd be looking at Australian-style economic protectionism rather than North Korean-style isolationism.

[danielmorozoff]

I do not want to seem like the guy holding the doomsday banner. I totally agree with you that there are still ways of righting the ship and isolationism is not a contract for war, I am simply pointing out that the similarity to what we have seen in history before is uncanny and we must heed those warnings.

To avoid sounding cliche, I hope we remember history...