What Do Americans Think Of The Democratic Peace?
Rudy Rummel
The isolationists libertarian website LewRockwell.com has reported on an important survey, "Public Skeptical About Bush's Democracy Crusade" (here). Colleague comments on it below:
Regarding the survey on promoting democracy, one interesting finding was the fairly straightforward view (point 1) that most Americans don't favor "promoting democracy with military force" — of course not! Americans are so imbued with the democratic culture of bargaining, negotiating, and compromise, that reverting to the use of force for almost any purpose except clear self-defense is anathema.
This meshes with the view that going to war wasn't a good enough reason to do the Iraq war (point 2) — but then who said that was the main reason? This is a skewed question!
A disturbing finding (point 3) was that although a very large majority feels that democracy is the best form of government, there is less confidence (only 50%) that it is best for all countries. This does seem to mesh with the finding (point 8) that Americans don't think the US democracy is perfect . . . . I wish the survey had asked "If you don't believe that democracy is the best form of government for any particular country, what form of government DO you feel is best for that country. . . and why?"
(Continued here)
Dr. Rummel seems to argue for the position that fighting wars expressly for the purpose of installing democracy which, presumably, will later not go to wars against other democracies. I may be vastly simplifying his position. But regardless of how he feels, if anyone does think this is a good idea, I would strongly disagree. It is almost bizarre to think about going to war to prevent war. If you want a world where people don't go to war with each other, how about starting with the proposition that you yourself will not go to war except when you are forced to do so in self-defense? At least you are then living by the example you wish others to accept.
Finally, let me say a little something about this "Democratic Peace" thing. UP UNTIL NOW, you may have a world in which democracies don't war with each other. Anyone who knows the least about statistical analysis will realize the problem here. Democracy has only existed on the planet for a couple of hundred years and most countries on the planet are not democratic. As more and more countries DO BECOME democratic, the more chances that will arise for them to have disputes that may lead to war! And how much MORE likely is this to happen if some of those countries had democracy shoved down their throats? Think about it.
As far as I can tell, all that achieves is it allows your enemies to get the drop on you. They're safe in the knowledge they can mass troops on your border, block your ports, send their terrorists to blow up your buildings, and you won't respond until they've already launched their initial strike. Read about the 1967 and 1973 wars in the Middle East? Remember World War 2? Remember Korea?
As the cliche goes, the best defense is a good offense, and that's often very true.
Of course you have to balance that against being too aggressive and actually creating problems but offensive wars of defence have been prosecuted sensibly in the past. You have to take acts of war, and declaration of war, seriously and respond to it rather than umming and erring like we seem to do today.
Iran has declared war on Israel and America about a billion times. Perhaps it's time we took them seriously? If not, then when DO we respond? After they've built nuclear weapons and launched them? That might not be the best plan.
Look, we ARE at war - we HAVE been hit. There is no real question about this. I'm not proposing some Age of Aquarius peace-nik solution to all problems. I must have made that much clear in my statement of feelings concerning Sadaam. Unfortunately, in this real world we live in, violence in sometimes quite necessary.
And I certainly acknowledge that there are many degrees of defining "self-defense". Certainly taken the first move against a country amassing troops or aims missiles would be defined as self-defense. Certainly if Iran launched against Israel, it would be definable as “self-defense” if we immediately retaliated.
All that said, most Americans don't want war unless there is a MOST IMMEDIATE THREAT to their peace and safety. By the examples given by Nicholas, you could also make an argument that a pre-emptive strike against the Soviet Union and The Peoples Republic of China would have been acceptable uses of a "self-defense war" in years past. We never got those wars and most of us are glad we didn't.
When you propose invading country X to overthrow its government because you think some day this country might attack you or somebody else, you need to stop and ask yourself, is this a real threat or just your own hated or paranoia that causes you to see country X as a threat. Even paranoids can have real enemies.
Realistically, Iran is not much of a threat to the US. It clearly is a threat to Israel and it could be a threat to Europe, but both Israel and Europe already have nuclear weapons, so they are certainly not defenseless. In the past Israel has made clear to Russia that in the event the existence of Israel is threatened, Israel will use nuclear weapons. Since Russia was supporting the Arab governments in the region, Israel told Russia that it would retaliate against Russia as well as the Arab countries. I am sure that Israel has already told Russia that if Iran were to launch a nuclear attack on Israel, Israel would respond against both Iran and Russia.
Iran has legitimate defensive reasons for wanting nuclear weapons. Of course, the current leaders of Iran sound pretty crazy when they start talking about Israel. The question is, are they serious about wiping Israel off the face of the earth? Surely they know that Israel would wipe Iran off the face of the earth in response and probably much of the rest of the Arab world and some cities in Russia too.
Threatening Israel has always been a standard way for Middle Eastern leaders to show they are not western puppets and distract their people from noticing what a lousy job they are doing. Are you sure the Iranian crazy men are not just talking like this to distract Iranians from the lousy job they are doing?
Of course, there is no way to know for sure, but actions do have consequences. Invading Iraq had consequences. One of the consequences was to strength Iran and make them more desperate for nuclear weapons. Bombing or invading Iran would have consequences. The loudest advocates of invading Iraq did not understand what the consequences might be of that invasion and did not have a plan for dealing with those consequences. I don’t think the people advocating bombing or invading Iran understand or have thought through what the consequences of that might be.
You clearly have a different take on reality than I do, mikeca. Iran supports terrorism; terrorism is a threat to us (it's cost us more than $1 TRILLION dollars over the last 5 years—a significant threat that we probably don't want to get much more significant). That's the reality.
The question is degree of threat and what the proper course of action is.
And we have legitimate reasons for not wanting them to have them. Unless you're prepared to defend the current Iranian regime down the line the legitimacy of their wishes is simply moot.
Dave, there are highly placed individuals in quite a number of countries who support terrorism. Do you really want to fight the war on terror by systematically going to war with each of these "enemy" countries? Or would you rather have a policy of taking out terrorists (and their supporters, even if highly placed)?
We have a lot of friends in Iran. You can't paint a overly simplified picture of what that country means to us. Browse through the variety of feelings here at this Iranian website and read this article in particular and ask yourself if these are such terrorist enemies that you want our bombs raining down on them.
Do you propose turning them against us because we attack their homeland? How will we handle the aftermath? The same way we are handling it in Iraq? If Iraq is a sticky issue right now, imagine having 5 or 6 Iraqs to deal with on this level.
But I also think that it's reckless to discount terrorism—which mikeca did.
Propose alternatives. I have. At length.
The Iran nuclear weapons program really has nothing to do with terrorism. Iran could completely give up their nuclear weapons program, and still be a terrorist threat, but we are talking about bombing them because of their nuclear program.
Even giving this ludicrous statement any weight whatsoever, you are suggesting that we abandon our allies in the region merely because Iran is not yet near building intercontinental range missiles. So we can sit back and avenge another Holocaust, but do nothing to prevent one. I hope you've never thought of yourself as truely liberal, progressive, or humanist, because in reality your stated desires enable the stated desires of mass-murdering thugs.
The blissful way you shrug off the linkage between Iranian nuclear technology and terrorism is also ridiculous. Certainly initial weapons are likely to be too large for a terrorist cell to take advantage of, discarding any possibility of smuggling inside cargo ships or oil tankers, but the U.S. working with far less advanced technology than is available in the open market now managed to build man-portable nuclear weapons and launchers by the 1950's.
Rudy's position, as best I understand it from having read his work and debated with him for over a year, is that if you do go to war and take out a regime, you have an obligation to help the people who lived under that regime build a democracy. You shouldn't just destroy a regime, then turn around and walk away.
By the way, one does not "shove democracy down people's throats." Democracy is a fundamental human right. You don't shove human rights down people's throats, you recognize and grant them those rights.
Of course, the current leaders of Iran sound pretty crazy when they start talking about Israel. The question is, are they serious about wiping Israel off the face of the earth? Surely they know that Israel would wipe Iran off the face of the earth in response and probably much of the rest of the Arab world and some cities in Russia too.
I am speechless at such a dangerously naive statement. The former President of Iran said point blank that a nuclear strike could destroy Israel forever, and that the retaliation would only destroy a small part of the Islamic world. Can anyone tell me why we shouldn't take such statements seriously?
Especially since we know that at best Israel's only got a few dozen warheads?
I'm certainly not AGAINST people striving for the best, and democracy has been shown to be just that. I do think it's a bit disengenuous to think that if you conquer their nation and install that democracy that you aren't shoving it down their throats. Dr. Rummel stated in one of his earlier posts that the type of Islamic rule that is NOT "Islamofascist", but clearly treats their people in a way that we don't condon in the West, should not be considered our enemy and we should resort to more moderate means of encouraging change. I assume he doesn't want us to "shove democracy down their throats" even though they clearly don't allow the freedoms we've come to take for granted as human rights.
And Dave - I was simply responding to what you wrote by asking you questions. I'm sorry if you found it offensive that I'm not already aware of where you stand. What I said would only be "strawmen" if I stated them as facts about your position. I asked. Thanks for clarifying. Remember, you may have written much on the subject, but it's unlikely that any one person who reads something you wrote also read all the things in the past that you wrote which would give it the context needed.
Our forefathers pledged their lives, their personal fortunes, and their personal honor, and by extension, the lives and fortunes of their families in perpetuity for the sake of freedom. That's a pretty big pledge. I wonder if even many modern Americans value freedom so highly. If we truly valued freedom so highly ourselves, would we stand for all the nanny-laws which sacrifice some of our freedom for the illusion of security?
Some societies and cultures may place more value on things other than freedom than on freedom itself. Its not that they don't value freedom. It's that in the hierarchy of values, freedom ranks lower than it does in our society. Freedom is risky. Freedom doesn't guarantee outcomes. For guaranteed-outcome oriented people, freedom is a bad bargain. Of course we would argue that guaranteed outcomes are just an illusion. But people like their illusions. That's what socialism is all about.
Fascism is just socialism with a racist or religious twist. It is worth asking if cultures and societies that have fallen prey to the promises of fascism don't have a systemic weakness for guaranteed outcomes which run counter to the values of freedom.
In theory, everyone wants freedom. But just ask any teenager if he is not just a little scared of the responsibility that comes along with the freedom of adulthood. Daddy and Mommy are no longer around to pick up the pieces on a daily basis. When societies and cultures are confronted with the demands and responsibilities of living in freedom, it is worth wondering whether they will grasp it, or shrink back from it out of fear.
Debatable. We sent MASSIVE amounts of military aid to Germany's enemies without which they would probably have lost to Germany, and put an oil embargo on Japan, a country that had no oil.
In hindsight, once America formally entered the war with its 43% of world industrial capacity and ocean barriers keeping all that industrial capacity totally untouched, the war's ultimate outcome was never really in doubt. Interestingly, Germany was not required to declare war on the US by the terms of its alliance with Japan but did anyway, indicating they may have felt they were already at war with us anyway via Lend-Lease.
A lot of Iraqis are doing the same thing right now.
The American Federation of Scientists estimated that Israel had 200 nuclear weapons as of Jan 1, 1999. Of those 100 were missile warheads and 100 were aircraft deliverable bombs.
The US has 12,000 nuclear weapons, of which 6750 are considered deliverable, about 2000 warheads on ICBM, 3456 warheads on submarine launched missiles, and the rest as aircraft deliverable bombs.
Dean, I really think that 9/11 has made you lose perspective. Middle Eastern leaders have been exploiting the issue of Israel for more than 50 years as a way of proving that they are great leaders. Iran is now trying to make itself the leader of the Muslim world by jumping on the Palestinian cause in a bigger way. Al Qaeda is also trying to set up cells in Palestine to attack Israel, because their attacks in Saudi Arabia and Iraq against Muslim civilians have alienated many people in the Arab/Muslim world. They hope that attacking Israel rather than Muslims will rehabilitate their image in the Muslim world.
Clearly Iran’s nuclear program is a threat not only to the US and Israel, but also to Iraq and Saudi Arabia, but by framing the issue in terms of Israel, Iran can silence opposition in the Arab world to their nuclear program.
The hard-line elements in Iran were getting weaker throughout most of the 90s, until the US started shaking its fist at Iran and threatening it with schoolboy taunts, like labeling it part of the Axis of Evil. Since then the Iranian hard-liners and fundamentalists have become more popular and have been able to reassert total control over the government. A bombing raid on Iranian nuclear sites would just strengthen the Iranian hard-liners, and cause them to withdraw from the NPT and resume their nuclear program at sites even deeper underground.
As to the question of culture: without doubt, democracy requires cultural adjustment, and it tends to evolve with the country. But today, the majority of the world's countries, and a majority of the world population, now lives under democratic regimes, either electoral or liberal. That has been the most remarkable development of the last century: we went from almost no democracies to a majority of the world living under democracy in barely a century. Thus democracy has proven to be adaptible to many different cultures.
I don't find the number of American nukes meaningful in this context.
As for the notion that Iran was "softening" in the 1990s until we got mean to them: I see precious little evidence that this is true. The same hard-line elements have always been the ones with all the real control. There's been no change where the power actually resides. Moreover, this thinking is based on the quaint notion that despots and terrorists act only because we "provoke" them. Ah yes, that's it: if we weren't mean to them, they wouldn't be acting this way. This is also known as "battered wife syndrome" in certain circles.
You seem to have a real desire to appease tyrants and mass murderers, Mike. I really think you ought to think about that some time. And you ought to think harder about 9/11, and what it taught us about the willingness of leaders in certain political movements (like Al Qaeda) to convince their crazed zealot underlings to die just to murder people they percieve as their enemies.
Really man: where's your perspective?
Excuse me? Moral equivalency makes me retch.
The reason the US was a 'good guy' in WWII or Korea is because of two reasons.
First, who we were fighting. The Nazis and the Imperial Japanese were pretty detestable people. The Nazis in particular were one of the worst regimes in the history of the world. Dr. Mengele was one of the most despicable people ever.
As for Japan, look at what they did to their enemies, real or imagined. Read up on Japanese prisoner of war camps like Changi. Read up on the "Rape of Nanking". They raped a fricking city. Read up on "comfort stations" where they enslaved Korean women as sex-slaves for their soldiers.
I understand they were acting honorably for their culture. So? The Aztecs culturally thought that sacrificing children to their gods was honorable. The Romans thought that watching slaves kill each other was high entertainment.
Some things are intrinsically wrong. Slavery is one of them.
The other reason? We won.
But the first reason is the real one. Think of what the world would be like if we hadn't won that war. Or if we had never entered it. Europe as a Nazi hell-hole and the Pacific rim as another hell-hole. Just ask the Filipinos or Chinese or Koreans who lived under Japanese rule.
A democracy is always the good guy in relation to a murderous, totalitarian dictatorship.
It's pretty funny that the left doesn't seem to understand that. Or it would be funny if the punchline wasn't slavery and death for millions.
One reason why we didn't get those wars is because Russia was afraid to do something that might cause us to launch a thousands nukes at them. Now, if they had believed we wouldn't launch nukes... then why should Russia not try to take our allies over if they won't be punished for it? Why adopt a wait and see policy, if the alterantive is more beneficial?
Installing democracies in the Middle East, is one thing. What we are doing in Iraq may appear to be that, but what we're actually doing is trying to create a Middle East superpower, friendly to us, and an enemy to Iran and Saudi Arabia and Syria. Divide and conquer, a really basic strategy. Democracy, a means to an end.
Iran knows this, and so they hurry their race for power.
Dave, there are highly placed individuals in quite a number of countries who support terrorism. Do you really want to fight the war on terror by systematically going to war with each of these "enemy" countries? Or would you rather have a policy of taking out terrorists (and their supporters, even if highly placed)?
Asymmetrical wars can be fought on multiple fronts. It is only conventional wars that need one single front line to be cost effective. Which means, the US can fight a lot of people with asymmetrical tactics, just as a lot of people can fight the US superpower with asymmetrical tactics. it goes both ways. If their asymmetrical tactics defeat our symmetrical armies and support structures, then we go back to asymmetrical tactics as well to counter theirs.
This means war with everyone, yes, but not in succession.
Do you propose turning them against us because we attack their homeland?
We didn't propose turning the Kurds and the Shia and the Sunnis against us for attacking their homeland either. Okay, maybe the Sunnis, but now they're on board. So you can get them on board, but not if you don't do anything about them. You can't get allies if your enemy controls the population.
As for nuclear deterence, people should look on a map. Israel is small, Iran is big. This means, what exactly? It means that a nuclear air burst or a ground burst will damage proportionately more percentage of Israel than the same would do to Iran. Amanie knows this. He believes, does anyone else?
Even if they don't use a nuke against Israel, the psychological damage it does is itself beneficial.