Brad DeLong reprints one of his better short posts...

...and asks us to count our blessings:

November 12, 2004:

Brad DeLong's Semi-Daily Journal: A Weblog: Let Us Give Thanks (Wacht am Rhein Department): Daniel Drezner writes:

danieldrezner.com :: Daniel W. Drezner :: The dogs that don't bark in international relations: Newspapers, media outlets -- and, because we feed off them, blogs -- tend to focus on the violent hot spots in international affairs. This is entirely appropriate -- but occasionally, it's worth stepping back and remembering that there are parts of the globe where everyone has expected and predicted things to go "BOOM!" -- and yet, in fact, conditions have improved.

Yes. Let us give thanks that the most brutal and blood-soaked border in the world is quiet--a border inhabited on both sides by those bloodthirsty peoples who have been numbers one and two in terms of the most effective killers of foreigners for centuries.
Who am I talking about? The Germans and the French, of course
It is now 59 years and 9 months 65 years and 9 months since an army crossed the Rhine River bearing fire and sword. This is the longest period of peace on the Rhine since the second century B.C.E., before the Cimbri and the Teutones appeared to challenge the armies of the consul Gaius Marius in the Rhone Valley.

 I have to wonder, though, if that "longest period of peace" observation would really hold up.

Image:  anyone got some anti-French propaganda?