That's right. The EU didn't come out covered in glory exactly after the Yugoslav wars, but what you say is spot on.

Donald Tusk, using language I don't particularly favour, voiced an opinion today that a British exit would be catastrophic for the EU. I think that this is a dangerous situation that he is pointing to. Suppose the EU collapses after we leave. We could find a Europe in economic turmoil comprising disparate states with huge inequalities between rich and poor countries with their no longer enjoying mutual interests or a desire to prevent the weakest from becoming basket cases. Wouldn't do much for our trade either. We would quickly be back to pre-WW1 and pre-WW2 status in many regards. There could easily be a threat to democracy in a number of the poorest nations. Only twenty years separated those two wars. The Common Market was set up just twelve years after WW2 and the explicit aim of its early-fifties forerunner was to integrate nations in order to prevent future wars. Little Englanders love to tell us that no, it wasn't economic interdependence, mutual interest and an insistence on human rights and democracy among (eventually) 28 states that achieved this, but the iron fist of Nato (which, in effect, means giving up a big chunk of our sovereignty to the US and which had us involved in a 45-year Cold War with an insane arms race that saw us nervously watching apocalyptic drama-documentaries on the telly about nuclear Armageddon - they forget that bit).

So I'm in. My only grandchild is eight months old and I don't want him living in an economically unstable, warring future Europe.