In all recorded history there has never been a democracy to fight a war against another democracy. Why?

Question

The closest you can come to that is America's civil war. It is an amazing fact. What accounts for this?

Answer 1

Simple, because despite all the Blah, blah, there has never been a true democracy. This crap that they pour over our heads these days is just a blind for the grim reality, that we are as much slaves to capital now that we have ever been.

War is only in the interest of Capital, there has never been a war that was tio the benefit of the cannon-foder consumed in it, and by cannon-fodder, my friends I mean you and I.

Democracy ? Wake up people, there is no democracy.

Answer 2

The question has merit:

So far no answers are even close to refuting this statement.

To call "Yugoslavia's ethnic battles were democracy vs. democracy" insults the memory of such genocide and to believe that Serbia was a democracy defies logic.

Democracy as we now define it requires universal suffrage:
all people must have a vote.



We have had wars like UK versus Argentina, Greece versus Turkey and such, but the idea is good. Trouble is there are few true democracies other than Western Europe and other industrial powers, calling Pakistain v. India a war of such is flawed as Pakistan was/is a weak example.

It is a philosophical question; but really never challenged. England v. America circa 1812 is a joke: as if the folks in Wales and Scotland had a vote?

Answer 3

While your statment that there has NEVER been such a war is flawed, in general that has been the case. And lets ignore the rhetoric of both sides saying "democracies don't fight" or "We're not really a democracy".
A Democratic nation, or even one with "democratic tendencies" is less likely to start a war because it is unpopular, and the leaders will likely not get re-elected.
A Dictatorship is not answerable to the people, and is usually lead by an egomaniac, and is much more likely to start a war.
So if you have one type of nation less like to start a war, they are also not very likely to attack another like themselves.

Answer 4

I entirely agree with meg in saying that throughout recorded history there have been very few democracies so statisticaly fewer of them have been to war.. but many have.
ancient athens was democratic and fought a hell of a lot of wars
Hitler was democraticaly elected
so was Milosevic. Yugoslavia WAS a democracy by the definition of democracy.
greeces was with turkey after WWI was a war between two democracies.
Falkands war also.
I am afraid yoru question has not basis

Answer 5

In all of recorded history there have been very few democracies. If you require universal suffrage, then you might as well say in the 20th century, and then explain why Germany was not really a democracy in 1938 when WWII started, even though Hitler was a popular elected leader.

Answer 6

One of the assumptions of International Politics is that democracies will not fight democracies - relies on the assumption that a liberal democracy will strive for the pursuit of the well-being of the citizens by pursuing trade, and ensuring the freedoms of the individual.

In this assumption, democratic societies will strive to pursue trade with other nations and will be reluctant to fight wars in which result in the destruction of freedoms and happiness of its citizens. As both societies have democratic beliefs as common denominator - unless threatened by another society, will do everything they can to pursue peace.

Of course like all assumptions it has flaws, It fails to recognise that democracies will pursue their own interests - if states are rational, then states are selfish and will be prepared to go to war to defend / pursue their interests.

The assumption also does not recognise that nations will fight to gain - over resources, over land - anything to protect what they define as the 'national interest'.

Answer 7

Where did you get this fact?
How do you define a democracy?

Look up the term, then come back and ask the question. America was not and has not been, nor ever will be a democracy.

Answer 8

Democratic countries are civilized countries that realize that the goal of life is to be as awesome as possible. By awesome I mean productive, moral, and pleasure-oriented. It's like: Democratic countries understand not to mess around with their neighbors' stuff. But communists, socialists and criminals don't surivive by maintaining their own stuff, they must constantly steal stuff from others. It's like Hitler during WWII, he had an entire labor force that were basically all slaves, even freeborn Germans had almost no rights during the wartime economy!!!(1) And people dare complain about economic slavery in this country!!!! See, liberals can't co-exist with non-bullies, because bullying is the only way they can exist!!!!! By liberal I mean the above mentioned government types.

Answer 9

Britain during the war of 1812 was a democracy, albeit a weak one.

Yugoslavia's ethnic battles were democracy vs. democracy.

Athens wasn't the only democratic polis during the Peloponnesian War.

and, bizarre as it may seem, Hitler was elected to power and then manipulated his way to making it permanent.

Don't buy into trite sayings that aren't completely true.

Answer 10

It probably has something to do with the fact that even after 200 years since the birth of the U.S., there are still relatively few countries that can claim a democratic republic.