The theory's basically got it assbackwards. Any army powerful enough, and thus dangerous enough, to lead a country into a war dangerous enough to seriously endanger it will also have made its power, and its willingness to slaughter its country's citizens, felt in other ways before that. That's why democracies don't go to war against their neighbors.
That's all true, and well and good, but here is my question for you:
In the case of 'democratic' aggressors, such as for example the United States, does your analysis imply that they only attack when the victim is weak enough that the conflict would not constitute 'a war dangerous enough to seriously endanger it', or are we to understand that you consider such ostensible democracies as largely controlled by their military?
I consider both to be very reasonable positions, and of course there is enormous gray area available in between.. just curious where you stand.
In the grey area. Closer to the first position. The media's power (in selling Milosevic as every bit as bad as Saddam and the UCK as goody-goodies, for example, neither of which holds up to close scrutiny. In not asking questions about how dangerous an Iraq invasion was going to be to Americans themselves. Etc.) needs to go in here as well (of course, that leaves the question of who owns the media.)
My point is that Germany was no more at fault that any of the other countries that were involved in the war...
Of course I didn't mean Belgium or what have you, but Germany was no more at fault than the French, British, Russians, etc who had fully participated in fostering the environment which led to the war.
France didn't have to get involved, so why say that German involvement was "the key"? If Germany had declared war, and France stood out, then Russia would have said "I'm sorry, sir." and that would have ended it. It didn't end with the Germans. The French bear and much responsibility for escalating it.
France, according to her own contractual obligations, needed to get involved. And everybody knew that beforehand. If anything, it's Britain you want in that sentence. The Germans and Austrians did have hopes that Britain might sit out, and probably wouldn't have pushed for war as recklessly as they did if Britain's position had been clearer. Which it wasn't, incidentally, largely because the Brits feared that making their position clearer would motivate the French and Russians to be as grotesquely aggressive as the Germans (since
they could then have felt reasonably secure of victory and/or Germany buckling in, and Britain's foremost aim was actually to prevent a war.)
Thing is, though - without one side under the control, or at least the massive influence, of nonresponsible childish idiots who want to play with tin soldiers made of flesh and have no grasp of what war is like, no war happens in 1914. (Of course, given the political setup of not only Germany but Russia as well, this looks like merely a matter of time. In a way. But if no war would have happened, historians would today refer the pre-1914 treaty system as the reason why no war happened.) And these individuals, in 1914, were the German minister of war and Austria's senile emperor.
This doesn't mean everybody else bears no responsibility at all, of course (not even France, even though I repeat that of the five countries mentioned theirs is the smallest share. It's all a matter of degrees though.) but it's nonetheless an important distinction.
Electing a government does not make a state a democracy. It also requires freedom and human rights.
So how do you define freedom?
"Freedom is not knowing what you're going to do today. Unfreedom is knowing what you're going to do." ? ( (c) A.A. Milne. quoted from memory.)
