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The Great (and Strange) Experiment

From the fall of Rome until 1945—roughly 1,500 years—the European states were more or less constantly at war with each other. Because the Europeans quickly became the most powerful peoples on earth, there wasn't much anyone could do about this. The devastation gradually increased in savagery, reaching its cataclysm in the twentieth century when Europe launched two world wars in the span of 25 years.

But at the end of World War II, two countries—the upstart USSR and the upstart United States—emerged as vastly more powerful than the traditional European states. Determined that no more wars would come out of Europe, the USSR and the United States essentially colonized the Continent. In the east, the Soviet Union created fairly traditional colonies across Eastern Europe, establishing puppet regimes that reported to Moscow, stationing troops on Eastern European soil, demilitarizing the area, and, when the colonies got out of line, invading them (Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968).

In the west, the United States took a softer line, but still imposed (democratic) regimes on countries that didn't have them, stationed troops on Western European soil (where they remain to this day¹²), and demilitarized the area. America didn't invade Europe, but that's because it didn't have to, as the Europeans remained loyal allies of the Unites States. But suppose some Western European country—let's say, Italy—had elected a Communist government and that government ...