> In that respect it's been a wild success, I'm not sure we've ever had such a lasting amount of peace.
It's weird, but we basically had decades of peace in Europe with only minor conflicts before WWI. Interestingly enough, most of this minor conflicts happened in the balkans, much like recent history.
EDIT: not trying to deny your observation, or your conclusion that EU was a success in this, just mentioning an interesting fact.
Well, debatable. Last major war before WWI was in 1870, however there was an arms race and escalation of military preparation since the last years of the 1890s. So you really only had a couple of decades of peace, then people started preparing for war again.
It's weird, but we basically had decades of peace in Europe with only minor conflicts before WWI. Interestingly enough, most of this minor conflicts happened in the balkans, much like recent history.
EDIT: not trying to deny your observation, or your conclusion that EU was a success in this, just mentioning an interesting fact.