Also, most of the major powers did some kind of bloody wars in last 100 years, its just happened that Germans lost two wars and winners usually decide who are good guys and who are bad guys.
The sides in that war ranged from ‘Bad’ to ‘Very Bad’ in my opinion.
I didn't say they were good, but I am not sure if they were much worse than soviets and chinese, who received all benefits of winners and were considered as good guys right after ww2.
That’s mostly true but it was a marriage of convenience and did not last long. Churchill’s ‘Iron Curtain’ speech was in March, 1946, only a year after the war ended.
Relations were getting frosty much earlier and Churchill’s opposition to communism long predated the war.
‘I will not pretend that, if I had to choose between Communism and Nazi-ism, I would choose Communism.’ April 1937.
https://winstonchurchill.org/resources/speeches/1946-1963-el...
https://winstonchurchill.org/publications/finest-hour-extras....
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_in_the_Soviet_U...
he was out of power at that time: retired politician who lost elections. His opinion was his personal and didn't represent any government policies.
> ‘I will not pretend that, if I had to choose between Communism and Nazi-ism, I would choose Communism.’ April 1937.
at that time yes, communists spilled much more blood than nazis.
Germany is very densely populated but mostly smaller towns and cities and people tend to stay put more, so there's a lot of local history/memory. Imagine small towns where a generation ago everybody knows several people that died in the war and those who stayed home experienced other hardships. The US has been spared this mostly, but even the US smaller scale foreign wars had a toll on military members.
I grew up in Germany, and up until the FIFA World Cup in 2006 I can't remember seeing any person fly a German flag outside their house! Nationalism was a very frowned-upon thing, mostly for "Neo-Nazis", understood to be a slippery slope that lead to wars. The same goes for politics, there was great debate every single time German troops were deployed abroad before ~2010, see eg [1].
But things may be changing, AfD is gaining more and more popular support indicating an uptick in nationalism to me and a stronger feeling of international "importance".
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/1993/07/28/g...
Our super power role isn't good for America either (I'm American). We spent too time in the middle east protecting oil, and committed ourselves to stupid wars in Iraq under Bush. Guntanimo Bay and special extradition are grave American errors. I am happy to see that through energy independence we can delink ourselves from the middle east.
I am heartened too see new applicants to Nato, which is a defensive force only.
Going forward neither European weakness nor American habit of leading should play us into anything other than strategic threats namely China. We have to learn to say no.
Once nato partners have a problem on their border we need to compose better and strengthen each other.
I'm inclined to agree: better to temporarily prioritize China over getting better European cooperation if push comes to shove. We can't own European risk more than it can itself.
it may not last for a long, there are many reports that most potent shale reserves are soon to be depleted.