Leo Tolsoy once said, “All we can know is that we know nothing. And that’s the height of human wisdom.” There will never be a true definition for why states enter or don’t enter war. However, trying to understand these trends can lead us to a better understanding of the world in that we can notice patterns of events and predict what likely will happen next. This allows us to hopefully be able to prevent any future wars. One of the main types of regimes governing states in our international system is democracy. Democracy is defined as a regime governed by all members of the state (citizens), mainly through elected officials. A common theory regarding these democracies across the world, entails peace between all of them. This is called the Democratic Peace Theory. It attempts to explain the phenomenon that democracies hardly ever engage in armed conflicts against one another. Theorists look at this theory as a way to view international politics. The theory has gained a lot of ground since World War I. However, some realist international theorists think the theory is backed by flawed logic and think peace is caused by other factors. It is hard to say but, does democratic peace accurately describe peace trends between democracies?
The democratic peace theory was first introduced by Immanuel Kant in his essay labeled “Perpetual Peace” in 1785. Kant explains that to achieve universal peace in the international system, there needs to be an established constitutional regime across states, trade between these nations, and global institutions, formally known as Kant’s Tripod of Peace. If states in the system all have the same form of government, these states trade and there are established international state systems, peace will prevail. One of the main arguments for the democratic peace theory is democracies will not go to war because of shared liberal ideals. Shared normative values lead to peace between democratic nations because they agree on how to solve numerous issues. Barbara Farnham, in her essay labeled “The Democratic Peace and Threat Perception” argues this. Democracies will go to diplomacy when an issue arises before going to war in almost all cases. Diplomacy by definition is the act of negotiating between two persons, or two nations. This is a core value of a democratic state, so when these states have issues, they will respect their counterpart, and enter negotiations to solve an issue in order to prevent any form of violence. Another prominent normative value within democracies is human rights. As these states domestically progressed they all established a normative value to human rights. For example, as America was going through its civil rights movements during the 1960’s, England was also trying to pursue racial equality. This led to states unifying together to spread this normative value across the world. For instance, democracies share the notion that human rights destruction must be prevented at all costs. This stems from peace, because it strengthens the relationship behind democracies as they agree on a normative value that they think should be established throughout the entirety of the international system. An example of this is democracies sharing ideas on racism in the world, and democracies working together to prevent it. For example, after the normative value of equality became prominent between United Nations, they set economic sanctions of the apartheid regime in South Africa – which was becoming racist and segregated. This in turn would hopefully push South Africa into adapting to the new norm established and rid itself of racism and segregation.
Farnham brings up one more main idea supporting the theory regarding the elected officials of a democracy. She furthers Kant’s idea of elected officials in a democracy always trying to keep the votes they received to win their spot in the first place. War is violent and costly, and most citizens of a state will never opt to go to war unless it is in self-defense. Therefore, elected officials will, at all costs, avoid entering into wars because they don’t want public opinion to shift away from them, so later they can hold office again.
Another idea behind the Democratic Peace Theory is brought up by theorist Azar Gat, in his thesis “The Democratic Peace Theory Reframed: The impact of Modernity”. Gat is a supporter of the theory and argues that the economic interdependence between democratic nations leads to peace. Economic Interdependence is when two states rely on each other to profit monetarily. “Since democracies have shared values, they will engage in mutually beneficial trade.” (GAT, 77) Over time, democracies establish a trade relationship so strong that going to war would be too hurtful for both states. Gat also articulates the idea behind social modernization being a mean of democratic peace. Modernization brings out institutions that earlier in history were not there. Gat argues the development of global institutions like NATO and the United Nations were formed from democracies and brings together Immanuel Kant’s “tripod for peace”.
Although there is a lot of evidence behind the theory, there is also much evidence against the theory. Many international theorists think the theory is very poor in that its evidence is extremely insufficient and idealistic. For example, international theorist, Sebastian Rosato explains how the theory is built on extremely idealistic notions that do not hold true in all circumstances. Democracies do not go to war because they hold similar values. According to Rosato “Shared Democratic values gives us no guarantee that states will both trust and respect each other”. He argues that when serious conflicts arise there is no true evidence showing that each state will accommodate to the other’s specific demands, because there has not been a major conflict between democracies since World War I. This explains his argument in that there have not been conflicts to analyze, therefore one cannot make a strong claim regarding peace between the democratic nations.
Another rebuttal to the theory is that peace between democracies is due to the country’s economic interdependence to one another. This is seen as support for the theory, but its viewed differently in arguing against the theory. Here international theorists believe economic independence results in peace; whereas the theorists using economic interdependence as support, say because they are democracies, they are economically dependent on each other. Again, economic interdependence is when two state’s economies rely on each other heavily. For example, the United States and England’s long history of trade will keep them at peace for as long as they are still interdependent (Mosseau, 2013). Mosseau, in his thesis “Democratic Peace Unraveled: It’s the Economy” explains how most nations that pursue great wealth also have interests aligned. If two states have been economically aligned for years, going to war is almost “unacceptable” due to the amount of money that would be lost if a conflict arises. Significant losses in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) are a strong factor when deciding to go to war because they weaken the argument for going to war.
Major wars between democracies are considered a rare phenomenon. International theorist, Daniel Larison, talks about how the Democratic Peace Theory is based off of very few cases in history. He argues that before World War II, there were not a significant enough number of democracies compared to how many exist today. This logic is used by Larison to discredit the theory and state the obvious fact that there have been hardly any wars between major democracies (USA, UK, France, Germany).
Larison also talks about one other objection to the theory. Democratic Peace Theorists often explain how the states that were supposedly democracies, who took part in minor proxy wars, were not truly democratic enough to be classified as one. Examples like the wars between El Salvadore and Honduras, Lebanese and Israel, and Turkey and Cyprus are not considered full-democracies (Larison, 2019). Larison argues these wars were between democracies, but since the states lack some shared liberal values of democracies, and are weak in power, they are not creditable. Larison explains how even though these states have elected officials, promote diplomacy and have checks and balances – they still somehow are not considered democracies. This is a means of discrediting the theorists who do not consider them a democracy, because they are essentially putting these wars aside because the states are not nearly as powerful as the most powerful democracies in the world.
We see how the theory is interpreted from the international theorist. I’d like to suggest a different way to look at war and peace in our international system. I believe power is a means of peace, not regime type. By this I mean if there is an established unipolar power within democratic nations, peace will ensue. When there is a singular power within democratic nations, there will be a state all other democratic states can be allied with, engage in trade with, and establish global norms with. This will establish a peaceful state between the democratic nations because no democracy will try to fight them as they are going to be allies with them. Even if they do not become allies, they will not be able to win a war due to the unipolar democracies’ powerful military and economic capabilities.
World War II spurred the United States into democratic global dominance. This was because the USA was woken up by the war in that our true industrial power was exposed. We were the only major power in World War II whose economy did not plummet during the war (Ellis 2014). This gave us an advantage after the war. It allowed the United States economy to keep growing instead of trying to repair it. This led to the United States being the strongest democratic power in the world.
The unipolarity established between democracies after World War II has given the United States the ability to maintain peace between these nations since. The United States has been able to stay as the unipolar power because of its military strength and the effectiveness of its socioeconomic establishments. As of today, the United States spends three hundred billion dollars more than Russia and China combined on military spending (Adelman, 2017). This allows our military to have the best weaponry for fighting. It also allows us to spend millions of dollars on research for even better weaponry. The United States also has more aircraft carriers than Japan, South Korea, North Korea, United Kingdom, Russia, France, India and China combined (Woody, 2018). This gives us the ability to have a full company of troops (100-150 troops) anywhere in the world within twenty-four hours. (Bond, 2015) Another advantage the United States has is the control of 8/9 of the world’s biggest tech companies (Bremmer, 2015). As technology is a prominent factor today, the United States has the edge on future development. Finally, the United States has a vast network of allies across the world that are willing to fight for it at any given moment. It has multiple allies in Europe, the most powerful being France and England, and allies in the middle east, the most powerful being Israel. And finally, the United States has allies in Asia, the most powerful being South Korea and Japan (Katz and Queley, 2017).
The United States’ extremely powerful military and allies have allowed the United States to maintain peace in the world of democracies since World War I. No state is willing to go to war with the United States because they know they could not win due to our overwhelming military superiority and vast network of allies. This has allowed the United States’ unipolarity (most powerful state in the system) to keep peace in the world. With a unipolar power in place, the democratic states in the international system are deterred from going to war because almost anyone they attack is tied to that power and will lead to a war against the United States.
Pure power dictates peace in democracies across the world. When there is not an outright unipolar power and conflicts arise between democratic nations, power will be the deciding factor when it comes to armed conflict and ensuing peace. We see in history that democracies have gone to war, when there was not a unipolar power in the system. One of the most significant being the first World War. This was one of the deadliest conflicts known to man. World War I is viewed as the only major war in history between democratic states. If there was an established unipolar power between these democracies, there would not have been a wa because the nations would have united under this power. The nations who did not unite would not have the strength to withstand a war between the unipolar power and its allies.
World War I, also known as “The Great War”, was a war between major democratic states, and was one of the most devastating wars to mankind; leading to twenty million total deaths and twenty-one million wounded persons (Mougel, 1). The main contenders on both sides were all democratic. Germany on the central powers side and France, England, and the United States on the allied side. During this time, there was not an outright most powerful democracy. Germany was very strong with the second largest standing military behind Russia, but was much better equipped with advanced artillery mechanisms and ground level weaponry. England was also very strong with multiple colonies and a navy so strong it could have fought evenly against the next three strongest navies in the world, but they lacked a strong standing army (Li, 2017). England and Germany were very close on the power spectrum, too close to call one the democratic hegemon. Germany and England were also both democracies, but still went to war. Not one country was the most dominant in terms of power. This led to World War I, because when thinking about going to war, both states thought they could win, no states individual power had the upper hand. This led to the greatest war between democracies the world has ever seen. States that are the strongest democracy will produce allies that are stronger, since they can share intelligence, technology and resources to aid their allies in a time of war. In Europe during this time, there was not an outright democratic power like there is now. If there was, there would not have been a war because no nation would have been strong enough to withstand an all-out war with them. Let’s say England was undoubtedly the most powerful nation during the pre-World War I period. They would have allies strong enough to fight against any group of states in the world, they would have the strongest military, and they would be economically sound in supporting an all-out war. This would keep peace because nobody would want to fight them, and nobody could stand a chance in a war with them. Germany would not have been able to fight against all the democratic nations especially when one of them was the outright most powerful democracy. Even though Germany and England shared liberal values, they went to war. Even though Germany and England helped each other economically with trade and commerce, they went to war. Even though Germany’s and England’s leaders had to both worry about public opinion, they went to war. It goes to show in this case that the ideals behind the democratic peace theory did not hold true, and since there was no strongest democracy, there was an all-out war, and no peace.
The Democratic Peace Theory is something that will not be proven or disproven, in that, it is simply a theory. However, I think that power in the democratic world is the true means of peace. Since World War I there has not been an all-out war between democracies because the United States has been the strongest democratic nation. The United States has a well-established network of allies across the world, a strong economy and a very strong military. These are the glue that holds democracies together today. Looking back at World War I – the major war between democracies – there is a similar trend today in our peaceful state, that didn’t exist prior to World War I. This war would not have happened if there was an outright democratic power.
Although the Democratic Peace Theory reflects our values in the international system, it is inaccurate reasoning to explain why democratic nations do not go to war. People want the Democratic Peace Theory to be true. Everyone wants to think that war between democracy is rare because we share normative values, and our established international institutions, but that is not the case. A true democratic hegemon will cause peace between the nations that call themselves democracies.