[philwelch]

> I'm not really sure what there is to learn here, apart from the fact that the EU has been a phenomenal success in its real purpose - keeping the peace in Europe.

This seems to have very little to do with the EU.

European countries that have experienced peace since 1945 did so because they were militarily occupied by a nuclear-armed hegemon—either the US or Soviet Union—and hence had their borders secured via mutually assured destruction.

France is clearly positioning itself to be the new nuclear-armed hegemon of Western Europe as the US pivots towards either greater isolationism or focus on Asia and the Pacific.