Posted on 01/01/2006 10:15:01 AM PST by InvisibleChurch
I'd heard somewhere that a country that has a democratically elected govt has never attacked another country with a democratically elected govt. Is this so? Or does this all depend on what the meaning of "democratically elected" is?
WWI - probably; WWII - maybe.
I think it all depends on what 'democratically elected' means to whoever is doing the speaking or the listening.
Saddam was 'democratically elected,' for example. Allied forces declared war on him and ousted him from office.
It's just a catchphrase.
Well . . .
We declared war on Great Britain in 1812.
For that matter, the Indian Nations (Creek, Cherokee, Choctaw, Seminole and Chickasaw) declared war on the United States in 1861 -- and at the time all had democratically elected governments. In at least two of those cases (Choctaw and Cherokee) the declaration followed a plebicite on the issue which was wone by the hawks.
Maybe "western nation" might be a better term. What do you think?
GB was a monarchy
Depends on what the meaning of "is" is, dontcha know.
Just off the top of my head, I think Canada was a colony but with some democratically elected local leaders I think back in 1812, and we attacked them.
I think it's just a slogan.
Of 116 major wars of 438 countries between 1789 and 1941 not one involved democracies on both sides, although the studies author did get a bit twisty in their reasoning for the War of 1812 and the Civil War IMO.
I suggest reading "Power Kills" by R. J. Rummel.
It doesn't answer your question, but I know that the New York Times and the Democratic Party have decared war on the USA.
Yea, I raised our attacking Canada in the war of 1812, too.
But Great Britain was a Monarchy at that point
Interesting question. I think that the idea is that true democracies where the people have some say in things political and are at the same time free to pursue their own lives and visions without government interference mostly don't seek to go to war with similar societies. But there are few such countries.
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/DP.CLOCK.HTM
What is the democratic peace?
It is the web of factual propositions that:
Democracies do not make war on each other.
The more two nations are democratic, the less their mutual violence.
Democracies have the least foreign violence.
Democracies have, by far, the least internal violence.
Modern democracies have virtually no democide (genocide and mass murder)
Putting all this together, democracy is a method of nonviolence. And therefore, the democratic peace.
Sometimes it does. :-)
How about the American Civil War? Were those not two democracies?
By 1812 Britain was a Constitutional monarchy, in which the power to declare war was vested in the Parliment. For that matter it still is. It WAS a democratic nation in 1812 in the sense that it was a democratic nation in 1914 and in 2005
The last king that believed Britain was a monarchy had the government disagree with him to the point where he lost his head over the issue.
That's more believable, somehow.
IMO, yes. The studies author argued that the Confederacy had not actually achieved independence with succession, hence was excluded. I do not agree with that reasoning.
Depends on how you define it.
I'm a grad student, and I have a professor who argues that, in his words 'Stable liberal democracies haven't ever fought each other', but it basically comes down to how you define stable liberal democracies. (and that's old school liberal, not Chuck Schumer liberal, for those who aren't well read.)
Country vs. country not country vs self.
"The last king that believed Britain was a monarchy had the government disagree with him to the point where he lost his head over the issue."
And that was in the 1600s. Since the revolution of 1688 Britian has been run by Parliment.
Well, naturally, no one ever votes for a NYT's editor and certainly democrats only get "elected" through the courts.
And...
Supposedly, all but 2 or 3 of the current world conflicts (some 100 of them) have muslims/Islamics on one side of the conflict.
No doubt at all that Great Britain was a democratic nation in 1812. Anyone who argues otherwise needs to hit the books.
Don't doubt that.
Not sure what Argentina's political condition was during the Falklands War, but that one comes to mind.
(It will also probably go down as one of the most eclectic and unusual wars in modern history.)
Duh! Germany declared war on the US in 1941.
http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/PK.APPEN1.1.HTM
Appendix 1.1
Q And A On The Fact
That Democracies Do Not
Make War On Each Other*
By R.J. Rummel
"Supposedly, all but 2 or 3 of the current world conflicts (some 100 of them) have muslims/Islamics on one side of the conflict."
Well, duh. We are talking around 20% of the world's population spread over the threecontinents where most of the worlds conflicts are being fought.
And I'll make another blindingly obivious statement: All but 2 or 3 of the world's conflicts have Christians on one side of the conflict or the other -- because Christians are another big time religion spread over those same three continents. And yes, there are Christians in places like India and China -- and at least one insurgency involves Chinese Christians resisting the People's Republic's attempts to make them give up their religion.
"Not sure what Argentina's political condition was during the Falklands War"
It was a military dictatorship. The Galtieri Government as I recall.
To learn about the Reform Act 1832 and the Reform Act 1867, yes.
"Supposedly, all but 2 or 3 of the current world conflicts (some 100 of them) have muslims/Islamics on one side of the conflict."
http://www.strategypage.com//fyeo/qndguide/default.asp?target=WARS.HTM
WARS UPDATE: Number of Wars Declining
Quick & Dirty Guide to Wars In The World
"The number of wars has been declining sharply since the end of the Cold War.
There were about fifty wars going on in 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed.
Ten years later, there were half as many. Even after the 911 attacks, and the
invasion of Iraq, the number of wars continued to decline. Today, it is about
twenty. We track sixteen as active (Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel, Sudan,
Colombia, Kashmir, Pakistan, Ivory Coast, Congo, Somalia, Nepal, Sri Lanka,
Philippines, Chechnya, Burundi and Thailand.), plus about a dozen that are
really low level, just ended (and still liable to restart) or just dormant for
the moment.
There's been a lot less fighting, and people killed, every decade since the
1940s. A lot of this has to do with nuclear weapons. The major nations, those
that can afford nuclear weapons, and a lot of non-nuclear ones, are more
reluctant to get into a fight with each other. It's still likely that, some
day, one of the growing number of nations with nukes, will use one against a
neighbor. That will reinforce, for everyone, the need to be careful with
nuclear weapons, and wars in general.
Many of today's war are taking place in areas where no one is in charge, and
no one wants to be in charge. Africa is a favorite spot for these kind of
wars, but even here, the peacekeeping troops eventually show up."
"The War on Terror has become the War Against Islamic Radicalism. This
movement has been building for over half a century, and has been around since
the early days of Islam. Historically, it has flared up periodically in
response to corrupt governments, as a vain attempt to impose a religious
solution. The current flare up is international because of the availability of
planet wide mass media. Only two countries, Sudan and Iran have established
Islamic governments, and both are failures. Islamic radicalism itself is
incapable of mustering much military power, and the movement largely relies on
terrorism to strike a blow for the cause. Most of the victims are fellow
Moslems, which is why the radicals eventually become so unpopular with their
own people that they run out of new recruits and fade away."
After the WWII Western Europe was uniting under Soviet threat. Swiss were quite warlike, and very likely in their long history they did not hesitate to fight a democratic country if there was some quarrel.
Italian and Greek city states fought wars even when both sides were democratic.
It was a rebellion, not a war between countries. Besides, when Davis and his government initiated hostilities they had been appointed not elected.
Belgrade had McDonalds and that didn't stop Clinton (who probably knew the location of every McDonalds in the world) from launching war.
WWII
And there were none in WWI. France was the only 'democracy'. Great Britain shouldn't count IMO as they are a Constitutional Monarchy to this date.
GB was a limited monarchy, or if you prefer, a parlimentary democracy.
The US will never be a true democracy until we get a valid vote count from Cook County Illinois. Thank goodness the founders had the sense to make the US a republic of limited governmental powers, and widely diffused authorities.
Perhaps some day we will have enough sense to elect politicans who will limit the government to its authorized powers. I don't have much hope left.
How about America's "Quasi-War" with France in the 1790s? Or the Mexican War, at least at its start before Santa Anna couped the government? And the "War of the Pacific" 1879-81 between Chile and Peru (with Bolivia thrown in for a while)?
I think the basic point--that Democracies are less likely to engage in war--is sound.
Is Serbia a democracy? If so then Monica's war is an example.
If the South had won the Civil war, I'd consider that somewhat analagous to the Revolutionary war.
Hitler's party, the National Socialist German Worker's Party was elected with 33 percent of the vote, but then ended elections, and banned other parties. He was never elected President after Hindenberg died, but rather illegally assumed both the Chancellor and President roles.
Is is necessary to point out that Germany was no longer a democracy after elections were abolished and competing parties were banned?
No on WWII also. That had Dictatorships attacking Democratic Governments,and Parlamentary Monarchies and one Dictatorship claiming to be a democracy (CCCP).
The South did not appeal to legality because they would have lost. They appealed to the sword, and lost.
The US existed before the current constitution according to the Articles of Confederation, in a perpetual union. Robert E. Lee admitted as much. Pity he didnt act on those convictions, rather than on his misplaced loyalty to his State.
Care to make a call?
Good grief!
To use that oxymoron is simply comical.
Nazi Germany is a bit more controversial as to whether is was "democratically" established or not. In this latter case, it is by no means clear.
I remember a multi-hundred post thread last year arguing the point.
In Saddam's case the claim is simply a sick joke.
"Double DUH!"
You seem to be unaware of the status of Germany at the time, as the result of Hitler's "election", the many mysterious deaths that followed, enabling him to become the unchallenged Nazi leader. That sequence of events will be debated forever.
No argument from me, but technically he was an elected leader, even though the election was a charade and everybody knows it.
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