From Victor Davis Hanson’s latest:
There is one general rule about the history of the modern state of Germany since its inception in 1871: Anytime Germany has been both unified and isolated, armed conflict has followed.
We often scoff at such quaint historical laws — forgetting that World War I followed from the inability of the French to harness German nationalism after the Franco-Prussian War. World War II was a result of the inability of the victorious allies either to dismantle the unified German state or to incorporate a defeated Germany into some sort of continental alliance.
