Wars have dominated European history and have gotten increasingly destructive.

As nation-states developed in the 19th century, ever larger armies were created. Industrialization transformed warfare through the creation of artillery, machine guns, tanks, airplanes and incredibly powerful bombs. Territorial rivalries, imperial ambitions and national hatred culminated in the most destructive war ever. Total war between 1939 and 1945 killed more civilians than soldiers, obliterated great cities in Europe and Japan, and devastated enormous landscapes.

Sixty years after the end of war in 1945, there are few signs of this physical destruction. But the memory of war remains powerful throughout Europe. These memories have wrought a transformation of thought as powerful as any bomb.

Europeans appear to have finally overcome their warlike history to create an unprecedented period of prosperity based on the assumption of permanent peace.

The recent speech of Horst Koehler, Germany’s president, on May 8, the anniversary of Germany’s surrender, was closely watched for his comments about whether Germans could be called victims of the war and about how to combat the threat of neo-Nazism. It was possible to overlook one of his most startling statements about Europe, because it was so uncontroversial: “Among us, war has become impossible.”

Making war impossible has taken great effort. Soon after the end of World War II, German and French leaders began to create strong economic ties between their formerly hostile countries. Over decades of controversy, economic cooperation took permanent shape in the Common Market, attracted other nations and developed political institutions. Now, in the form of the European Union, international cooperation appears to the poorer nations of Eastern and Southeastern Europe as their economic salvation. The EU extends from Portugal to Ireland to Estonia to Greece. Ukraine and Turkey are vying for the right to be the next candidate for admission.

Hopes for admission depend on the creation of a democratic political system with wide protection for human rights. The greatest motivation for political reform in Turkey in recent years has been the desire to qualify for entry to the EU.

Two great European powers do not share this consensus about peace. Russia under the leadership of Vladimir Putin has not given up its dreams of imperial power nor accepted the superiority of democratic institutions. Warfare on its southern border, first against Afghanistan, now against the breakaway region of Chechnya, is a regular instrument of national power.

The “orange” democratic revolution in Ukraine was accomplished over the strenuous objections of Russia.

The other power made uncomfortable by European international cooperation and determination to solve world conflicts peacefully is the United States. The conservatives currently in power in Washington lose no opportunity to denigrate international institutions. The Bush administration has selected one of the foremost opponents of the United Nations, John Bolton, as its choice to be ambassador to the U.N. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld responded to the unwillingness of Europe’s major powers to support the unprovoked attack on Iraq by slandering them as “old Europe.”

In fact, the European determination to stay peaceful is not old but new.

Recognizing that the system of sovereign and competitive nation-states had failed in crucial ways to provide safety and security for ordinary citizens, European leaders have shown the world how successful international cooperation can be. Of course, the EU has difficult problems, especially now as it tries to create a constitution, which every one of its 25 members must ratify. But it is easy to lose sight of the fundamental achievement of the EU: the impossibility of war among its members.

The constant discussions of wartime memories, which I have read and heard during this year, show how much the real experience of war has transformed Germans’ ideas. Death and destruction, years of privation and agony of rebuilding, plus the guilt of having started the war, have convinced Germans that war itself is wrong.

This is very different from the weakness of Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement of Hitler in 1938. German sentiment against war is strong because it has led them to make active peacemaking through international cooperation into national policy. Rather than hide behind useless defensive walls, as the French did in the 1930s, Germans and their EU allies have taken positive steps to make European war unthinkable. For these “old Europeans,” peace is the ultimate human right.

Americans have not experienced war’s devastation on our soil since the 19th century. We have refused to accept consciousness of the human cost of the wars we have waged in other countries, from Vietnam to Iraq. A year of living in the heart of Europe has shown me that most Americans do not know the real meaning of war, and thus do not accept the real message of peace.

Steve Hochstadt lives in Lewiston and teaches history at Bates College. He is temporarily teaching in Germany and can be reached at [email protected].