DEMOCRATIC PEACE THEORY AND WARS OF THE THIRD KIND BY JILL STARR
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Written by
lpcyu
on Dec-7-10 2:48pm2010-12-07T11:48:33
INTRODUCTION
"Even though liberalism has
achieved striking success in creating a zone of peace, and with
leadership, a zone of cooperation among states similarly liberal in
character, liberalism has been equally striking as a failure in guiding
foreign policy outside the liberal world."
Woodrow Wilson
Michael
Doyle, Kant, Liberal Legacies, and Foreign Affairs, Part 2
It is beyond the
capability of mortal man to unfailingly forecast whether the
progressive intercourse concerning international relations will lead to
a time when peace will prevail over war. Mortal man is however capable
of analyzing the historical development of international relations and
the variant schools thereof in order to predict whether future
international relations will be more peaceful than in the past century.
In concluding a critical analysis of the divergent schools of
international relations theory, I hope future international relations
till radually become substantially more peaceful than in the past
century. This prediction of peace regarding future international
relations is entirely contingent upon dual factors. First, which
particular school of international relations theory is espoused by the
most powerful liberal democratic regimes in the world; and second, the
measure of intensity that particular school of international relations
theory is espoused by those regimes. The birth of this contingent and
forthcoming peace in future international relations will not be
delivered devoid the immense labor pains of turmoil, rebellion, civil
war, conflict, and human right violations. These maladies will continue
to plague the societies of non-liberal, non-western, and marginal
liberal democratic regimes for an imponderable time period1.
This time period will end only after the world's most powerful liberal
democratic regimes stop conspiring to transform the entire world into a
single confederacy of friendly liberal democratic nation states. This
paper will challenge, subvert, and replace the modish school of
international relations called Democratic Peace.
DEMOCRATIC PEACE THEORY AND WARS OF THE THIRD KIND
Democratic Peace theory ensnares
many scholars of international relations into ever so effortlessly
believing the false tenet of the Wilsonian prescription for world peace
dictating "that if you want to have peace between states, you must have democracy within states."
Although the Clausewitz definition of war as
"organized combat between the military forces of two or more states"
has not occurred between liberal democracies since the end of WWII, 1notwithstanding, the world has never been devoid of war. Democratic Peace theory is not only incapable of replicating the peace
currently existing between liberal democracies and successfully
implanting it within non-liberal regimes, but also it has been extremely
ineffective in enhancing the diplomatic relations between liberal
democracies and non-liberal regimes. History reveals the axiom that
since 1945 "ninety-nine percent of the war casualties have occurred in
the Third World, the Balkans, and in the former Soviet Republics."2
The phenomenon of war has never remained static; it has evolved into the new phenomenon referred to by Holtsi as Wars of the Third Kind. Democratic Peace theory is retardant; it cannot transcend the shallow notion that Wars of the Third Kind
are syndromes originating from a country's formal regime type; a
malady suffered by non-liberal regimes refusing to convert their
government to a liberal democracy. Democratic Peace theory proponents
share the narrow minded view that after a non-liberal regime is
transformed into a liberal democracy the state will rest in peace.3
Contrary to the retrograde Newtonian notions embraced by scholars
advocating Democratic Peace theory, Wars of the Third Kind can not be
remedied by inoculations of the disease. Treatment of that type serves
as a catalyst for the wars only increasing their force, velocity, and,
mass/size. Wars of the Third Kind not only defy empirical causal
relationships, but also erupt at any time for a myriad of reasons. They
tend to originate when the hostilities between homogeneous nations
co-existing within the boundaries of one state become so highly
intensified that one homogeneous nation dissents from the other/s within
the state by asserting self-determination in an effort to construct a
new sovereign state comprised of members derived entirely from their
homogeneous nation. Each homogeneous nation within the state then
attempts to dispose of the other through the most hideous forms of human
behavior: genocide, rape, murder, torture, and a list of human right
violations that is seemingly endless. Thus the polar nations co-existing
within the boundaries of one state commence a War of the Third Kind; a
war fought entirely within the internal boundaries of one state.
Democratic Peace theory is clearly a malignant cause of these wars which
I will demonstrate.
My claim that
Democratic Peace theory instigates Wars of the Third Kind is a verity I
vindicate to other scholars of international relations by only asking
them to reminisce that wars of this breed trace their genealogy to the
theoretical solutions of war developed by former United States
President Woodrow and his entourage of intelligentsia and statesman.
Ironically, the most vivid feature in former United States President
Woodrow Wilson's famous Fourteen Points as a prescription for
worldwide peace is also the most formidable fault thereof. At the Paris
Peace Conference in Versailles in 1919 Woodrow Wilson let loose the
poisonous principle of self-determination upon the world; henceforth
self-determination has infected nations in the world like an incurable
retrovirus. Wilson's Fourteen Points and it's primary principle of
self-determination in addition to the dim-wittedness of slicing up and
then dishing-out states like unlimited pieces of pie in order to maintain a Balance of Power in Europe at the Congress of Vienna have reconstructed both the mayhem and massacres within 20th
century states formerly seen in the Thirty-Years War; ending in 1648
with the Treaty of Westphalia. All three elements: Fourteen Points,
Treaty of Westphalia, and the Congress of Vienna are constituents of 20th Wars of the Third Kind.
These wars are currently burning their way through the world from one
multi-national state to another with flames Democratic Peace theory can
not extinguish. Wilson insisted his "peace was [superior because it
was] to be a democratic peace, and what would be more democratic than
to give a voice to all the suppressed peoples of Europe? Wilson, argued
that self-determination is not only democratic because it incorporates
the idea of popular sovereignty; it is also just." It is unfortunate
that no statesman at either the Congress of Vienna or at the Paris
Peace Conference at Versailles thought in more practical terms such as
Fichte who recognized that "the polity must coincide with the community
[the ethnic and cultural composition of a state] since the community
[of a state] precedes the polity." Fichte's assumption is correct. Wars
of the Third Kind ensue in failing states attempting to victoriously
arise from the abysmal hell created by such liberal legacies as
state-making, colonization, and self-determination created by the
supposedly most regimes are all very similar.
Their
ideal-type like India which "contains numerous communities. The
population of India has thirty-six major languages, every religion
existing in the world, and multitudes of ethnicities." Wilson later
acknowledged the "ignorance of practical application of his favorite
principle for re-organizing Europe [self-determination]….Wilson states
"When I gave utterance to those words ["that all nations had a right to
self-determination"] I said them without the knowledge that
nationalities existed which are coming to us day after day [and up to
1998 AD]…I have experienced [anxieties] as the result of many millions
of people having their hopes raised by what I have said [and who still
expect those expectations to be met]." This fully vindicates my claim
the, Democratic Peace Theory, is the disease in lieu of the cure for
Wars of the Third Kind.