What are the biggest misconceptions about wars after WW2?

That Europeans didn't fight in any of them. As the pop history has it...

"After two bloody wars causing untold misery and bloodshed, Europeans decided they had had enough of war and set out to build a strong and prosperous continent built on peace and harmony."

Except, of course, for all the nasty little conflicts in the post-colonial endgame, from Indochina to Ulster. Not to mention that the "peace" that was attained in Europe owed at least as much to the ongoing standoff between two heavily-armed nuclear powers, as to any newfound pacifistic tendencies among the Europeans themselves.

Plus, why would they need TWO wars to realize that war is so awful? "After deliberately smashing two of my fingers to bits with a hammer, I figured that smashing my fingers to bits with a hammer was pretty painful, and decided never to do it again."
 
Canadian civilians cling to the gentle concept of their soldiers quietly working as Peacekeepers working under United Nations mandate. They expect Canadian soldiers to follow the same rules of engagement as Toronto police officers. Too bad the Taliban never read Toronto City bylaws!
Canada May have supplied unarmed UN Pracekeepers between WW2 and the end of the Cold War(1946 and 1990) but that era ended all in September 1993, when Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry shot back at Croatian soldiers in the Medak Pocket.Medak was the frontline between Croat and Serbian armies in southern Bosnia-Hertzagovnia. Croats had already agreed to evacuate Medak Pocket as part of a cease-fire, however they had not finished massacres I gotta life cal Serbian civilians before the dead-line shot back at UN (PPCLI) peacekeepers.
The Medak Pocket received little publicity because it coincided with the Canadian Army beating to death a teenaged Somali theif who snuck into their camp.
Since 1993, Canada has provided insignificant numbers of UN Peacekeepers, while shooting bad guys in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and a few other conflicts that are not mentioned in polite company.
 
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