Editing Post-Cold War (section)

=== Europe ===
The biggest trend of Post Cold War Europe has been a push towards greater integration. The process had begun in the 1950s after WWII in which A: hard-line militarized nationalism was not popular [[nazis|for some fairly obvious reasons]] and B: economic cooperation was seen as a better way to achieve and maintain peace and prosperity. It started with the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951, with Germany, France, BeNeLux and Italy and was gradually built on. Eastern Europe was added to the mix after the collapse of the Warsaw Pact. The eventual result of which was the European Union. In 1995 the EU introduced the Euro as a Common Currency, which was widely adopted by 1999. Basically the EU exists to make business easier between member states via the 4 freedoms (freedom of movement for people, capital, goods and services), has frameworks for easier cooperation between members and some joint programs like the European Space Agency, some environmental projects and big research initiatives like CERN. Lastly the EU also provides funding for various projects via the Cohesion Fund and the like, enabling smart member states to improve the standard of living along with other benefits for their citizens.

Things however went rough for the EU following the GFC in 2008 as the EU went into the infamous decade-long Eurozone crisis with big EU players like Germany forcing austerity on smaller members, creating a rise in Euroskepticism, with opposition to the EU and pushback by various localist movements. Most notably Brexit which saw a member state leave for the first time ever, with mixed results for the British Economy and feelings both domestically and abroad...then Russia decided to stick its dick in a blender on February 2022 by creating the largest war in Europe since WW2 by waging a war of conquest on Ukraine. Europe now faces its biggest existential crisis in decades. With the current shitshow going on in the east of the continent several countries have started rearming themselves.  This includes Poland, which had a similar history of conflict with Russia and some describe as the next European heavyweight on par with France and Germany, the latter of which also started rearming for the first time in years and allocated a whopping 100 billion euros for the endeavor.

Whilst NATO was revitalized, Europe now faces a daunting prospect of de-industrialization (or at least a shift away from fossil fuels) as Moscow stopped all natural gas and oil flows to the continent whether intentional or unintentional; forcing Brussels to try and keep as much of its industry as possible as European brands started to high-tail it to either the US or China. Nevertheless, despite the humbug with the US over their united front against Russia, increasing American protectionist policy alongside various responses to the Trump administration has made the EU increasingly wary over its reliance and dependence on Washington. Some like Macron have ambitions to make the EU a third 'superpower' pole and it ''may'' be possible....if Brussels manages to hold on, get its shit together and craft its own policies balancing Washington, Beijing and Moscow. Another point of worry is the rise of populist movements which Brussels fears could lead to pseudo-authoritarian countries like Hungary proliferating, that the aforementioned country has been giving Russia interested looks does not help matters either.

With the enforcement of article 13 restrictions of freedom of speech in europe have become widely embraced by government authorities with the excuse of copyright defense and counter terrorism.
 	
Outside of the EU. Possibly the ''weirdest'' event to have occurred is the growing military and economic relations between China and France. Whilst relatively new, France has been engaging with the Chinese the most out of all the Great Powers in Europe. Analyst suspect that this budding relationship might have to do with the disastrous handling of AUKUS which plunged French trust to the Anglosphere to an all-time low. Since 2022 at least, Macron and Xi has been in lock-steps with one another and Beijing has been increasingly warming to the ideas of treating France as ''its'' special strategic partner in Europe. Of course, results are too early to tell and how far that relationship will go is unknown, but the effects are already there with Paris being the major influencer in driving the EU's approach to be more balanced with Beijing.