> Behalf Of Gautam Mukunda
snip
> Start with a (surprising) fact. The
> base rate for wars is quite low. If you pick any given year in the
> history of any given country randomly, the odds are very high that it
> will be at peace with most of its neighbors, and in fact quite high
> that it will just plain be at peace with everyone. So you start out
> with a relatively rare phenomenon.
Australia in 20th century
1900-1903 South African War
1914-1918 World War 1
1939-1945 World War 2
1950-1953 Korean War
1948-1964 * Malaysian Emergency (against communist insurgency in Malaysia)
1964 ** Konfrontasi with Indonesia (keeping parts of Malaysia out of
Indonesian expansion)
1964-1972 Vietnam War
1990 Gulf War
Not counted are various peacekeeping efforts, such as Cyprus, Somalia, Gaza,
Bouganville, Cambodia, Rwanda
* Malaysian Emergency was not a war so much as a low key civil war. But
then, Korea and Vietnam were really high-level civil wars
** Konfrontasi was not a declared war but was a standoff/occasionally
shooting war
If Konfrontasi and Malaysia are counted, that comes to 42 years within the
20th century, just under a 1:2 chance of being involved in a war. Otherwise,
it is 25 years or a 1:4 chance which is hardly insignificant.
None of the enemies was a democracy, let alone a liberal democracy.
Snipped good points about reasons for democracies not going to war against
one another. Long may they remain. Improve even.
> Note what this does _not_ say - that democracies don't start wars.
> They do. Also, note that it does _not_ say that democratization per
> se is always a good thing. The same databases that tell us that
> fully-fledged liberal democracies don't fight each other tell us that
> democratizing countries tend to fight wars _a lot_ (see 1930s Germany,
> Italy, and Japan for examples). Note that a lot of countries around
> the world seem to be in the process of democratization as well, and
> think about what this might mean, too. :-(
>
Argentina in 1980 (Falklands) was nominally a democracy, wasn't it? I know a
military junta ruled, but wasn't there also an elected "parliament"
underneath the junta?
And Indonesia is also going through that democratisation. Story to be
continued...
