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From: orb@whuts.UUCP (SEVENER)
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Democracy, Wars, Imperialism and Nationalism:I
Message-ID: <424@whuts.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 6-Dec-85 09:53:08 EST
Article-I.D.: whuts.424
Posted: Fri Dec  6 09:53:08 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 7-Dec-85 15:25:31 EST
References: <432@ssc-bee.UUCP> <841@whuxl.UUCP> <1280@jhunix.UUCP> <849@whuxl.UUCP> <1316@jhunix.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 59

Apparently Kenneth Arromdee needs to study his history more closely
as he asks of my comment:
          > >From me       >from Kenneth Arromdee 
> >But there is another myth which is quite popular in the US
> >and other democracies, indeed it is a variant of rationalizations
> >always used by nations preparing for War or actively engaged in it.
> >For the US and Western democracies it is the myth that somehow
> >"democracy" necessarily makes a country less likely to go to War.
> 
> When, in the 20th century, did a democracy invade another democracy?
> Kenneth Arromdee
 
1)If you mean when did an already independent democratic nation attack
  another independent democratic nation then this is going to be made
  more rare in the 20th century since by that time the majority of
  the world was under the domination of European colonialism fostered
  every bit as much by parliamentary democracies such as Britain and
  France as by autocratic regimes like Germany and Imperial Russia.
  (Indeed, it has been argued that one of the causes of WW I was the
   German desire to get its own colonies to match those Britain and
   France already possessed)
  In having such colonies to begin with it should be quite obvious
  that Britain and France had to engage in numerous military interventions
  and invasions in the colonialized world.
  Once these colonies were established then I would argue that their
  efforts to achieve independence from foreign domination and colonial
  status were definitely efforts to achieve local autonomy and greater
  democracy as opposed to British,French and other powers efforts to
  retain exclusive control of these countries.  Therefore countless
  struggles for independence from Britain and France can be considered
  wars in the direction of greater democracy *opposed* by democracies
  like Britain and France.
 
2)In 1907 Austria passed a law providing for universal manhood
  suffrage and subsequently elected a Parliament composed primarily of
  Liberals, Christian Socialists, and Social Democrats.
  Need I point out that Austria-Hungary despite the movement towards
  democracy represented by this development was a major instigator
  (if anyone can be blamed, which is difficult in WW I since *all*
  were really at fault) of WW I by attempting to suppress Serbia's
  revolt and its manifestation in the assasination of Archduke Ferdinand.
  It was hardly the case that WW I necessarily represented a 
  "war for Democracy", but rather it represented attempts by all
  nations involved, whether democratic or autocratic, to increase
  their own power.  Thus democratic France had no qualms about forming
  an alliance with autocratic Csarist Russia.  France and Britain, both
  democracies and rivals for centuries, could have easily ended up
  on different sides in WW I and it might have been considered likely
  they would.  The reason they ended up on the same side had nothing
  to do with sympathy with each other's democracy but rather each
  nation's calculation of what in the complicated and shifting scheme
  of alliances before WW I, would be in their own best interest.
  
This is an example of established democratic nations attacking or
warring with other democratic nations.  There are many examples of
either invasion, occupation, or military intervention against movements
towards democracy in the 20th century by democratic nations.
More on these later......
                     tim sevener   whuxn!orb