Wednesday, August 02, 2006
Do democracies go to war?
Michael Totten (who is guest-blogging at Instapundit) argues that the current war in Lebanon blows away the idea that democracies don't go to war.
This war in the Middle East nearly demolishes the theory that democracies don't go to war with each other. Lebanon, aside from Hezbollah's state-within-a-state, is a democracy. At least it's an almost-democracy. Aside from my personal affection for Lebanon, the country where I recently lived, the only country other than the US where I've ever lived, this is what anguishes me the most: The Arab world's only democracy is being torn to pieces by another democracy.
The "Arab world's only democracy"? If Iraq isn't a democracy, then Lebanon isn't either. Sure, Lebanon has a government that was genuinely elected in legitimate elections. The problem is, the government doesn't control the entire country, particularly the part that borders Israel. Hezbollah, a non-governmental army financed and armed by Iran and Syria, controls southern Lebanon. Southern Lebanon is not a democracy. Michael tiptoes up to this argument, without quite getting there, when he writes that "it's telling, I think, that the Lebanese army, the fighting institution that represents democratic Lebanon and not just one totalitarian-sponsored political party, has chosen to sit this one out."
Far be it from me to quibble with Michael Totten about Lebanon or the Lebanese, but I think that Hezbollah is not really a "totalitarian-sponsored political party." That's a bit too benign, calling to mind as it does the Western chapters of the Communist Party during the early Cold War. Hezbollah is more like a militarized insurgency, financed from abroad, that has a political wing which is effective at public relations, "taxation," and getting out the vote. Israel has no beef with democratic Lebanon, but it has a huge problem with the unregulated army that contests and occupies territory that by rights and law should be controlled by the democratic government of Lebanon, but is not.
Finally, it is obviously not universally true that democracies don't go to war, so I think Michael is demanding too much of democracy if he believes that universal democracy equates to universal peace. Heck, both the United States and the Confederate States of America were democracies. If the entire world were democratic, of course there would still be war. Democracies pursue their national interests as other countries do, and occasionally those national interests will be unreconcileable with those of another country, democratic or otherwise. However, genuine democracies are far less likely to go to war with each other because most voters, most places, most of the time, do not like war. We're trying to make the world a better place, not a perfect one. Let us not destroy the aspiration for improvement with the requirement for perfection.
7 Comments:
By 
, at
Wed Aug 02, 08:14:00 AM:
Just a quibble: If it were true that democracies do not go to war because most people in democracies do not like war, then you should also see democracies fighting non-democracies much less than non-democracies fight each other. Studies, however, do not show this phenomena. Democracies are just as warlike as anyone else when it comes to non-democracies. Instead, it is something about the relationship between democracies that accounts for the democratic peace. I'm a fan of Charles Lipson's Reliable Partners, which argues that democracies have signaling advantages that can be reciprocated by other democracies and allows each side to deal with each other in confidence. This theory covers cases like Lebanon, where the government, even though being democratic (though very weak), is in absolutely no position to provide assurances regarding Hezbollah.
By , at
Wed Aug 02, 09:43:00 AM:
I would like an example of a true democracy fighting another true deomcracy. I can't think of one. It shouldn't be hard after all, there is a finite amount of countries and history is well recorded.
And no, civil wars such as American Civil war, do not count (though the American Civil War was truly a unique civil war by all acounts)
By 
Cassandra, at
Wed Aug 02, 10:09:00 AM:
First of all, "Lebanon", as in the government of Lebanon has not gone to war. This rather critical distinction seems to be eluding some folks.
A more apt analogy would be if our own Republican party one day decided to lob missiles at Paris and George Bush threw up his hands and said, "You know, I've tried time-outs and self-esteem building exercises, but they've always been so high-spirited! I'm just at my wit's end!"
And of course we all know the press would fall all over themselves in their rush to sympathize with Dubya (just as they have done with the government of Lebanon) and rain hell-fire on Jacques Chirac if he tried to stop the RNC from lobbing rockets at the Champs-Elysee from some well-populated section of Adams-Morgan, all the while affirming France's absolute and incontrovertible right to defend herself, except of course when her attackers use human shields.
By , at
Wed Aug 02, 11:04:00 AM:
This is the pointless left-wing exercise of obsessing over definitions of meaningless distinctions.
Lebanon is a democracy just as the Wiemar Republic was a democracy. A nation-state does not become endowed with national strength just because some friends label it a democracy.
Lebanon and Palestine have internal cancers, just as Germany did, that will doom them. A true democracy would have prevented Hezbollah, Hamas, the National Socialists or, even, the Russian communists from taking over their host nations.
By , at
Wed Aug 02, 03:31:00 PM:
Lebanon is a hologram of a democracy. True Silliness.
By Noton Yalife, at
Wed Aug 02, 06:28:00 PM:
Gambit,
The Democratic Peace is not that Democracies don't go to war. Or even that they go to war less. It's that they don't go to war against each other.
Also, just because Lebanon has had one election does not make them a Democracy. They have yet to have at least 2 elections and one successful and peaceful transition of power resulting from those elections. One man, One vote, One time, does not a democracy make.
It is for this reason that the U.S. Civil War was also not a war between democracies.
By Country Squire, at
Wed Aug 02, 08:36:00 PM:
As Tigerhawk said "genuine democracies are far less likely to go to war with each other because most voters, most places, most of the time, do not like war. We're trying to make the world a better place, not a perfect one. Let us not destroy the aspiration for improvement with the requirement for perfection." To paraphrase - democracy may not be the best system, it's just the best possible system.
