>>This is a lesson that the US has not learned (yet). They never have losts so many human lives in a single war as did fall on european battlefields. Imagine the US having a battlefield where 6 million lives are lost (russian casualties alone in WII). Would they not do anything to prevent that in the future?
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>Walter, I think your last paragraph is a load of bollox. The US rues the fact that they lost so many of their own boys' lives fighting European wars (let's face it - bringing liberty to you occupied countries especially). I think you have an absolute neck to use this to have a pop (again) at the US. If it weren't for them you wouldn't have the luxury to sit there typing this rubbish, without your German gebieter looking over your shoulder. You say Europeans were tired of constantly warring - don't you think the US was tired of stepping in to sort it for you.

Terry,

Is it??

Accoring to the statistics, only in WWII they lost significant number of lives (For WWI see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_casualties). Second, the US was not even involved in WWII until pearl habour. They were forced to enter the war as they were both challenged by Hitler and Japan.

Third, it is a given fact that the US does not have the massive amount of causulties in any of their wars that have been falling on the european battlefield in a single one. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WWII#Casualties.2C_civilian_impact.2C_and_atrocities) . This is unmatched in history. This is the reason that europeans favour diplomacy rather than going into war as oposed to american who are more willing to take up the arms. whether one is better than the other is to be reviewed. But one things is for certain: Europe is tired of fighting wars. They have lost too much in those.

The cold war started from the fact that the russians wanted to do something about the wars in europe (Napolean wars, WWI, WII) costed many, many millions of russian lifes. They were absolutely affraid that it would happen again if they did not do something about it. And who can blame them ??

As for the US helped us out of WWII, sure we are very thankfull, but there are a few sidenotes to mention here.
- The US was not intending to go into WWII until they were forced to (after already 2 years of WWII).
- The number of US causulties in this war pales by the numbers for other nations (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties).

Again, while I'm absolute thankfull of the US liberating much of europe, don't forget that they were a part of the allied forces where Canada and Brittian had lost a larger percent of their population. Russia paid the ultimate price with a loss of almost 14% of their whole population.

So my statement above, while confronting and a personal view, is one that tries to explain why europeans are not fond of taking up the arms, while US americans have less problems to do so. My thoughts are that *if* the US had experienced the horrors of wars that have been roaming the european battlefields for many centuries, they'd probably would think differently about the balance between going to war and use diplomacy. It is not difficult to see an example in vietnam and iraq.

OTOH, we sometime HAVE to go into action. Europe will hesitate to do so, so other nations like the US will probably step in a lot sooner than we do. It is all in history. Of course NATO was invented to get us on the same line. But what good is it when the US ignores the UN and NATO resolutions ??

Walter,