I’m not quite sure if you’re disregarding the fact that Norway and Denmark haven’t had a war for hundreds of years because they don’t share a land border? In any case i can point out that there were plenty of Norwegian-Danish hostilities before the union time. With both Norway and Denmark being big on seafaring, the waters between Norway and Denmark have historically been seen much more as a highway (as you say about the Anglo-Portuguese waters) than anything else.

The distance is shorter though, so I would rather compare the Norwegian-Danish border to the Anglo-French border, and the lack of a land border there hasn’t really prevented any wars.

Why don’t you go ask the Nazi sympathisers we executed for treason after the war about that?

If a state permits its citizens to betray the country in favour of an adversary in the event of a war, it’s incapable of protecting itself. The most important task of any society is to keep its members safe. A crucial aspect of that is accepting the social contract that everyone on the society will help keep each other safe, even in the event that an outside adversary invades and threatens to kill you. If you break that social contract- guess what? The rest of society will typically (at least historically) brand you as a traitor and imprison or execute you. Why? Because you’ve shown that you’re willing to put their head on the block for your own benefit, so they see you as a threat (perhaps the worst thinkable threat) to the security their society provides, and decide to remove that threat to protect themselves.

No matter what oath you have or haven’t taken, societies obligation to keep you safe only extends as far as your willingness to protect the society. This is why treason, in most societies, is seen as one of the worst, if not the worst, crime you can commit. It’s literally stabbing strangers that are willing to die for you and your family in the back.

Quite a surprising one here: I think the Norwegian/russian border can actually match that. I believe Norway is the only country neighbouring russia that has never been invaded by them (sans WWII, where they invaded Nazi-occupied Norway and willingly left after the Axis was defeated).

I also think the Norwegian/Danish border has been conflict-free for some hundred years (to be fair, we were in a union for ≈450 years ending in 1814). We’ve had some skirmishes with the Swedes throughout the years, but I believe the last one was in 1814.

You had me until the “China/Russa/NK” part…

Do you really think a good solution to the US slowly going haywire over the past 20-30 years or so is snuggling up to dictatorships, of which two have boots on the ground in the first major European war of aggression since WWII, and the third is the only thing keeping the economy of the other two afloat? I think not. I think alienating said dictatorships is a good idea. I also think the US needs to be confronted and forced to make a decision on whether it wants to remain on good terms with the civilised world.