Two Democracies Never Have A War?

The notorious North Korea and prosperous South Korea have come close to a war once again. This time, it is said that this attack is the strongest after their 1953 war..

Who is the culprit? That would be too broad a question to ask. In other words, who attacked first this time? If you are regular reader on geopolitical issues, it wouldn't take you much time to point out North Korea. Not because of notoriety, but it is the non democratic country between the two. If you observe of all world conflicts in the present as well as the past, one out of the two countries involved is a non-democratic country, owned by a ruler, monarch or a fascist. It is always this side that has got something to do with creating trouble.

To mention a few recent examples, Saddam Hussein when ruling Iraq created trouble for the entire region. Mahmoud Ahmedijenad is out there to create trouble for Saudi Arabia, Israel and US. Pervez Musharraf, in his time, created unnecessary tensions for India. In case of India china 1962 war, China was the authoritarian state.

So, it's time for North Korea to create trouble. It is an open fact their only motivation to live is for North Korean military and beating South Korea, as they got no other option.

Image from New York Times

The map above shows the island in red which was attacked (it is disputed), whereas the island with black plane, Inchon was the one where people fled.

"Never At War: Why Democracies Will Not Fight One Another" is an interesting book written by Spencer Weart explains marvelously why two liberal democracies never have war. Sure, there are exceptions as always. But then, th argument that one of the two countries is not indeed a democracy. That is specifically true in case of India Pakistan wars, where Pakistan did have a democratically elected person on power, but it was flawed. To be more clear on this, the way Democracy Index is calculated by Economist Intelligence Unit, there are many a 'hybrid regimes' where a namesake democracy exists but rule of law does not necessarily rule. Examples would be Russia, Pakistan, Turkey, Lebanon and Palestine where a democracy is on the cover, but ruler is different. The book gives excellent examples on wars fought in history, medieval era and modern era along with the voting rights of the people in these countries.

To get an alternative view, try reading the book, 'Democracies at War' which goes further one step and analyzes why democracies win 80% of the wars fought by them!

You might be interested in going for a Google search of why 'no two democracies ever had a war', I found the first page of ten results itself very interesting.

More interesting facts regarding this topic would be written in coming posts. So, keep visiting!