An open question is whether European integration has played a central or only a marginal role in securing peace in Europe. Skeptics of the “pacifying” effect of European institutions stress the crucial involvement of the United States and NATO in Europe during the Cold War and
afterwards, and the Europeans’ failure to deal with the breakup of Yugoslavia on their own. Moreover, peace has also held between Japan, the other loser of World War II, and its neighbors, and trade has prospered among them in the absence of Asian institutions analogous to the European Union. However, the Cold War ended in Europe with the fall of the Berlin Wall, Germany is now unified, and European institutions have played a very significant role in the process of democratization and integration of Eastern and Central Europe. In contrast, the relation between a still formally communist China and Taiwan remains tense and unresolved, and Korea is still divided and even at risk of a nuclear war, which could spread to Japan and other neighboring countries. On balance, whether because of European integration or other factors, in recent decades Europe has fared quite well in terms of peace and democracy relative to other areas of the world