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Question: Has a democratic nation ever declared war on another democratic nation?

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?


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To: floridaobserver

Country vs. country not country vs self.


21 posted on 01/01/2006 10:23:26 AM PST by calljack (Sometimes your worst nightmare is just a start.)
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To: No Truce With Kings; AppyPappy

"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.


22 posted on 01/01/2006 10:23:28 AM PST by No Truce With Kings (The opinions expressed are mine! Mine! MINE! All Mine!)
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To: freedumb2003

Well, naturally, no one ever votes for a NYT's editor and certainly democrats only get "elected" through the courts.


23 posted on 01/01/2006 10:24:18 AM PST by InvisibleChurch (The search for someone to blame is always successful. - Robert Half)
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To: Tijeras_Slim

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.


24 posted on 01/01/2006 10:24:19 AM PST by TomGuy
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To: No Truce With Kings

No doubt at all that Great Britain was a democratic nation in 1812. Anyone who argues otherwise needs to hit the books.


25 posted on 01/01/2006 10:24:34 AM PST by HitmanLV (Listen to my demos for Savage Nation contest: http://www.geocities.com/mr_vinnie_vegas/index.html)
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To: TomGuy

Don't doubt that.


26 posted on 01/01/2006 10:25:15 AM PST by Tijeras_Slim ("We're a meat-based society.")
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To: InvisibleChurch

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.)


27 posted on 01/01/2006 10:27:16 AM PST by ElkGroveDan (California bashers will be called out)
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To: InvisibleChurch

Duh! Germany declared war on the US in 1941.


28 posted on 01/01/2006 10:27:41 AM PST by pabianice
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To: InvisibleChurch

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


29 posted on 01/01/2006 10:28:39 AM PST by Names Ash Housewares
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To: TomGuy

"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.


30 posted on 01/01/2006 10:30:25 AM PST by No Truce With Kings (The opinions expressed are mine! Mine! MINE! All Mine!)
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To: ElkGroveDan

"Not sure what Argentina's political condition was during the Falklands War"

It was a military dictatorship. The Galtieri Government as I recall.


31 posted on 01/01/2006 10:31:48 AM PST by No Truce With Kings (The opinions expressed are mine! Mine! MINE! All Mine!)
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To: HitmanNY
No doubt at all that Great Britain was a democratic nation in 1812. Anyone who argues otherwise needs to hit the books.

To learn about the Reform Act 1832 and the Reform Act 1867, yes.

32 posted on 01/01/2006 10:33:01 AM PST by SedVictaCatoni (<><)
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To: TomGuy

"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."


33 posted on 01/01/2006 10:35:52 AM PST by Names Ash Housewares
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To: InvisibleChurch
There was two little chance to test this claim. For example in pre-WWII Europe, the non-monarchical democracies (UK, Sweden, Norway etc are monarchies) were very few and id not share their borders. Poland was democratic until 1926 and so was Czechoslovakia. They had little war in 1919 for Zaolzie. The main democratic republic in Europe was France and her only border with another democracy was with Switzerland.

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.

34 posted on 01/01/2006 10:36:29 AM PST by A. Pole (If the lettuce cutters were paid $10 more per hour, the lettuce head would cost FIVE CENTS more!)
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To: floridaobserver
How about the American Civil War? Were those not two democracies?

It was a rebellion, not a war between countries. Besides, when Davis and his government initiated hostilities they had been appointed not elected.

35 posted on 01/01/2006 10:39:17 AM PST by Non-Sequitur
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To: Hank Rearden

Belgrade had McDonalds and that didn't stop Clinton (who probably knew the location of every McDonalds in the world) from launching war.


36 posted on 01/01/2006 10:41:16 AM PST by silverleaf (Fasten your seat belts- it's going to be a BUMPY ride.)
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To: InvisibleChurch
Sure, but not often considering that modern day 'democracy' was a US invention and Europe and much of the World were still monarchies-empires up to WWII. Or outright dictatorships like the USSR.

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.

37 posted on 01/01/2006 10:43:29 AM PST by Condor51 (Leftists are moral and intellectual parasites - Standing Wolf)
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To: Harmless Teddy Bear

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.


38 posted on 01/01/2006 10:46:56 AM PST by Donald Meaker (You don't drive a car looking through the rear view mirror, but you do practice politics that way.)
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To: InvisibleChurch

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.


39 posted on 01/01/2006 10:48:56 AM PST by CivilWarguy
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To: InvisibleChurch

Is Serbia a democracy? If so then Monica's war is an example.


40 posted on 01/01/2006 10:49:24 AM PST by Nateman (Clinton happens.)
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