I have always liked to make an analogy between the countries of the world and a classroom. Of course, this room would be special because its students would be of different ages.

There we have students who have fought many times, but who have grown up and have understood that fighting doesn’t fix anything. Such is the case of France and Germany, which have faced each other in three major wars: the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871), the First and Second World Wars.

Or the case of France and England, which have fought each other 35 times, since the 11th century; the longest being the “hundred years war”, which actually lasted 116 years, from 1337 to 1353.

England and Spain were not far behind, and they fought at the end of the 16th century.

But today, it would be almost impossible to think that one of these countries would go to war with the other. They have passed that stage, they have reached maturity and progress.

On the other hand, we have countries that can be said to be the spoiled ones in the room, that are in their infancy, very far from the stability that the most advanced countries have achieved. In this group could be placed Afghanistan, Syria and others, always in permanent conflict. Also in this group would enter the countries where corruption prevails.

In addition, there are always students who attack their classmates. This reminds me of a friend from school who always had his lips split or injured, as a result of the continuous fights in which he participated. Iraq could be placed in this group, which in 1980 attacked Iran, starting a war that would last 8 years. Not content with that, in 1990 he invaded Kuwait, being defeated the following year by an international coalition. Uganda can also be mentioned here, which attacked Tanzania in 1978, only to be defeated the following year, which marked the end of its president, the bloodthirsty Idi Amin Dada.

In every classroom there is always the lonely, antisocial, reserved, secretive boy or girl. Such was the case in Albania in the 1960s and more recently in North Korea.

You can also find the talkative student, who is always getting into the lives of others. The example of this can be found in the Venezuela of Hugo Chávez.

And there are always those who are fighting all the time and it seems that they will never be friends, like Israel and the Palestinians, in a never ending conflict.

There is never a lack of a student who comes from a poor home. There are many examples of these countries, but what is striking is that of the 25 poorest countries in the world, 21 are on the African continent, the cradle of humanity.

Some infants are also present, who have just learned to walk. South Sudan is an example, being the youngest country in the world; it achieved its independence in 2011. Kosovo achieved it in 2008.

And it can’t miss the studious, the “chancón”, as they say in Peru; always getting good grades, number one in the room. Here we could place the countries that invest the most in research, those that register the largest number of patents and those that have the best universities, such as the United States, Japan, China, Germany, the United Kingdom and several others.

And finally, the abusive one, who takes advantage of his strength to bully his weaker companions, as was the case with the Soviet Union with its satellites, especially with Czechoslovakia, which was as if a little boy had faced a big and he took out the s. (the so-called Prague Spring of 1968).

And more recently the aggression against Ukraine.

REFERENCES: Data obtained from wikipedia and other internet sites.