Warfare on the wane in the world?

[Smurf]

That's your whole argument? That it was:

2 Democracies being under attack from 2 different dictatorships, and one attacking the other in hopes of allowing their favored dictatorship to beat the one that was attacking them.

I thought you were going to defend democracy...

 

[russ_watters]

I think he makes a pretty solid case, actually. I'd welcome you to point out any fallacies though.

First off, waste said modern democracies, so you can cut out anything before the US. Then you can cut out all revolutions and civil wars since they are...revolutions and civil wars. Frankly, looking at that list of 22, I don't see any that really qualify. The closest is the war of 1812, and many(most?) historians consider that part II of the revolutionary war.

 

[Smurf]

Well, it's like he said. The more you restrict it, the less impressive it becomes. Also, it's yet to be seen wether "democracies have never gone to war with each other" necessarily means "democracies won't go to war with each other".

like my second favorite maxim "Correlation is not Causation"

 

[russ_watters]

Well, it's like he said. The more you restrict it, the less impressive it becomes.

I don't see it that way at all. The way I usually put it is that no two major western democracies have ever been at war with each other. That's an extrordinary thing, considering that prior to them becoming democracies, the nations of the west were in nearly a constant state of war with each other. edit: If you think I'm changing the criteria on you, search the site - I've used the example before and I'm always pretty restrictive about it.

Besides, the writer of that link even admits that most of the references are obscure and barely passable, even under the most liberal criteria.

edit: Perhaps you find it uselessly redundant or self-reinforcing to say, essentially, that 'a form of government that works, works', but that's pretty ironic considering you freely admit the form of government you favor does not work. You could not reasonably say that stable, prosperous anarchic societies do not go to war with each other since no such thing has ever existed, nor even might exist for some centuries (milenia?) to come.

edit2: In fact, you take the logic a step further and chide others for not accepting your assumptions that an arachic society could be inherrently stable, prosperous, and peaceful -- and, of course, possible. With democracy, we don't have to make such assumptions: we know it works because working democracies already exist.

 

[Dayle Record]

I think that welfare is on the rise in the form of corporate welfare extended to defense contractors, who in turn increase our involvement in warfare, since we rely on intel from defense contractors to assess threats. There are more civilian contractors in Iraq, than US troops. What we give in corporate welfare, far overshadows social program spending. This is all moot, since we are now economically dead from this practice, but we just haven't fallen over yet. I was told yesterday, by a produce broker that the Chinese have just won the war, they own us, and they never fired a shot.

If terrorism counts as a war then we are in a war with Democratic Venezuela. Having close associates of the White House threaten assassination of Venezuela's Elected President, constitutes terrorism. Since the parties involved were not arrested, then there seems to be official sanction of that act.

 

[Smurf]

I don't see it that way at all. The way I usually put it is that no two major western democracies have ever been at war with each other. That's an extrordinary thing
..snip..
edit: Perhaps you find it uselessly redundant or self-reinforcing to say, essentially, that 'a form of government that works, works', but that's pretty ironic considering you freely admit the form of government you favor does not work.

It's a matter of tense. When talking about wether democracies, we should distinguish between "havn't gone to war" and "don't go to war". One is, if you take your definition of democracy, an empirical fact. The other, is a universal statement about the behavior of democracy, past, present and future, which takes more than merely a few history recitals to support. The strongest support for it is probably:

prior to them becoming democracies, the nations of the west were in nearly a constant state of war with each other

which is a pretty impressive alone. But we should take into account the fact that it took 2 world wars and a cold war during this shift to accomplish that. It was only when all of the Western European countries became fully democratic that the European Union reached a point of strength and a state of peace was assumed.

Also, this does not distinguish democracy as being the source of peace, merely a correlation. There are many other possible reasons for this correlation that should be addressed as well.

Furthermore, as I have claimed earlier in this thread, I consider the current western peace to be an entirely temporary measure, and in fact I think 9/11 is an excellent example of things starting to get back to the "normal" state before the west went on holiday.

As for Anarchism:

I have never actually said that anarchaic societies don't work, (at least I hope not) merely that, should you suddenly take away the government leaving behind everything else in our institutions, that it would soon digress back into authorative states (At least that's what I meant, I probably simplified it). Anarchism has to be set up by the people as a whole, and until they do that - well, it won't happen, but if it did (say, magic) it wouldn't work for long.

As for anarchists going to war, that belong in another thread.

 

[BobG]

First off, waste said modern democracies, so you can cut out anything before the US. Then you can cut out all revolutions and civil wars since they are...revolutions and civil wars. Frankly, looking at that list of 22, I don't see any that really qualify. The closest is the war of 1812, and many(most?) historians consider that part II of the revolutionary war.

I would count the US vs. Iriquois - mainly, because it's the same type scenario that would be the most likely today. Two radically different cultures that both happen to be democracies could still wage war against each other. The cultural differences outweigh any similarity in the type of government. (The similarity in culture and other factors weigh in on why Western democracies don't wage war against each other.)

McDonald's is a slightly better indicator. The combination of a democracy and multi-national corporstions can make war almost impossible. Democracies mean election campaigns and campaigns mean candidates need money. If a leader brings on destruction of a multi-national corporation's property, either in his own country or a different country, that leader is going to find it hard to raise funds for his election campaign.

 

[wasteofo2]

That's your whole argument? That it was: I thought you were going to defend democracy...

That's not my whole argument, that was an argument in relation to one instance.

Britain did not go to war with Finland.

Britain was in a war with Germany.

Finland was in a war with the USSR.

The only reason Britain attacked Finland was because they needed the USSR to help them defeat Germany.

2 Democracies did not "go to war", they were entangle in a messy set of circumstances that led them to be allied with one dictatorship in hopes of defeating another that was a present threat to their national sovereignty.

That's totally different than if Britain bombed Finland with the hope of taking it over or anything like that.

 

[russ_watters]

McDonald's is a slightly better indicator. The combination of a democracy and multi-national corporstions can make war almost impossible.

It sounds kinda funny, but yeah, I agree.

 

[Burnsys]

It sounds kinda funny, but yeah, I agree.

Yees i agree too. Specialy in cases like sheel and chevron in cool person.

 

[Smurf]

I don't see violence going down. Maybe wars between governments, but violence in a whole is going to rise.

 

[alexandra]

According to an analysis I read, the "Human Security Report" that published these findings (http://www.humansecurityreport.info/) suggests two factors leading to a decline in conflict: decolonisation and the end of the Cold War:

One explanation these reports offer for the overall decrease in wars in the last two decades is the ending of two of the main "drivers" of conflict: decolonisation and the cold war...

Many of these conflicts had a wider geopolitical aspect as "proxy wars" between the United States and its allies and the Soviet bloc. It was characteristic of this cold-war era that these wars, which killed at least 10 million people and wounded 30 million, were fought in the "third world" - including Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Ethiopia/Somalia - rather than Europe.

When the two types of conflict, decolonisation and cold war, are taken together, it is not surprising that (as the Human Security Report points out) the two countries that have been most involved in international wars since 1946 are Britain and France; the United States and Soviet Union/Russia are next on the list.
http://www.opendemocracy.net/xml/xhtml/articles/2927.html

The analysis continues that the apparent good news is, perhaps, not as good as it looks:

But a close reading of the HSR's detailed analysis suggests two issues in particular that deserve closer attention.

The first is the marked tendency it notes for people to flee from major areas of conflict, seeking security either in neighbouring countries or even further afield. This means that large numbers of people are being exposed to sustained and often extreme dislocation and hardship - a trend that may well result in an underestimation of the actual numbers killed and wounded in current conflicts.

The second issue is that in any case, the crude counting of casualties can be hugely misleading, especially when conflicts are happening in weak and impoverished societies. Most wars of the modern era take place in just such societies, with sub-Saharan Africa being particularly badly affected. In such circumstances, the effects of war can take years or even decades to overcome.

The destruction of schools, hospitals and clinics, damage to farming systems, marketing networks, ports and even bridges will have a far greater effect in poorer countries where most people already live close to the margins. The net effect frequently is to add to malnutrition, susceptibility to disease and, especially, infant mortality and death in childbirth in a manner that is almost entirely missing from the simple, direct statistics of war.
http://www.opendemocracy.net/xml/xhtml/articles/2927.html