Pax Europaea

Transatlantic cooperation and European integration was designed to maintain the fragile peace that was created in Europe after World War II.

Meanwhile, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation formed as defensive military alliance among western European countries with the U.S. and Canada, to deter aggression both within and from without.

Although Central and Eastern Europe remained under Soviet influence as members of the Warsaw Pact, they too experienced little conflict, with the major exception of internal repression, until the 1990s when a series of wars in Yugoslavia broke out as the country disintegrated.

Within the EEA, there have been no military conflict since 1945, making it the longest period of peace on the western European mainland since the Pax Romana.

(Note: Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia can be considered part of Europe or Western Asia; they are listed here for completeness)