In response to the thesis of Democratic Peace Theory, would it be fair to claim that the reasoning behind it could equally be used to justify "Stalinist Peace Theory", in the sense that centralised Stalinist states never go to war with eachother? As far as I'm aware no Stalinist Dictatorship 1 VS Stalinist Dictatorship 2 wars have ever taken place, but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.
The Stalin Issue and the Soviet Leadership Struggle
DPT seems to be caused by the interlocking directorates and multinational business interests involved more than the "democratic" part of it. But, good luck getting a mainstream academic to see it that way.
Most of our political leadership are considered "Realists." They don't see democracy as having much to do with war and peace.
In fact, I would even venture to say that only academics (and talking heads) give much thought to the so called link of "democracy" with war and peace. Anyone who thinks practically about geopolitics knows that the type of government doesn't really matter. They all do the same things in the international arena.
Cambodia and Vietnam, both communist countries, were at war during the late 1970s.
Albeit Cambodia was Maoist. Once the Vietnamese marched into Phnom Phen and introduced Stalinism into Cambodia the two states were henceforth at peace, however, thus all the more proof of the validity of the Stalinist Peace Theory.
Exactly. There's nothing in the nature of democracies that makes them more peaceable in general, or more peaceable towards other democracies in particular. I'd actually argue that democracies tend to be more warlike simply because the democratic State has so much more war-fighting capacity than its smaller non-democratic predecessors ever had. The fact that actual modern democracies have rarely warred with one another is an historical accident, resulting from the fact that the preeminent modern democracies are part of the same international power structure: namely, that established by international financiers of the West to promote their own interests.
democracy is related to wars. democracy has to do what hte people want - if people dont want wars like happened during 'nam and declining irac&afgan wars, then govts are forces to widthdraw or lose popularity. And getting into a war with another democracy would be extremely unpopular, hence why democracies dont do it. Democracies set up progressive tax policies, antidiscriminatory rules and as such are economically efficient in increasing overall social welfare.
Is it even worth pointing out that a puppet regime will obviously be at peace with its patron state? Regardless, Stalinists warred with each over for control over their respective governments, resulting in frequent purges, executions, and internments.
Now that I think of it, your "Stalinist Peace Theory" is irrelevant if only because under Stalin every country in the Eastern Bloc was controlled from Moscow.
Is it even worth pointing out that a puppet regime will obviously be at peace with its patron state? [...] Now that I think of it, your "Stalinist Peace Theory" is irrelevant if only because under Stalin every country in the Eastern Bloc was controlled from Moscow.
So-called "Democratic Peace Theory" is used as cover for "American-Hegemony Peace Theory". A democracy per se doesn't have to be friendly with the US. Those that are friendly with the US are client states of the US to some extent.
The keyboard is mightier than the gun.
Non parit potestas ipsius auctoritatem.
Voluntaryism Forum
those two realizations, I think, are the goal of putting forth a proposition such as "Stalinist Peace Theory." In fact, I shouldnt have edited your comment with ellipses, I'm just too lazy to change it. The arrival of the audience at those three points is the goal of stalinist peace theory, as they are more-or-less equally applicable to democratic peace theory.
aervew:democracy is related to wars. democracy has to do what hte people want - if people dont want wars like happened during 'nam and declining irac&afgan wars, then govts are forces to widthdraw or lose popularity. And getting into a war with another democracy would be extremely unpopular, hence why democracies dont do it. Democracies set up progressive tax policies, antidiscriminatory rules and as such are economically efficient in increasing overall social welfare.
... According to those who define and measure "social welfare".
Oh hey, that sounds analogous to a quote attributed to Stalin, doesn't it?
In order to engage in war-like behaviors a political organization has to leech productive capacity from the polity. I would guess that a young and free nation would rapidly achieve great economic success and then as the government grew it could do that type of leeching. The motivation for the decision makers would be greed, the justification would be self-defense or some other "divine right". We have the right government, that's our land, they took it, we need to take it back. The people there deserver our kind of government since it's the best kind.
The problem with the Soviet Union was that they crushed the productive capacity in their country before it could really get going through normal economic action. The problem with modern democracies is that a small amount of freedom generates vastly larger wealth and once started takes a lot longer to break. The neat tool they have now is the ability to drive consumption through manipulation of fiat money, which keeps us fat and happy without us seeing the debt as a real effect on our consumption, once we do, a war machine will be unsustainable.
So, yes if the measure is wars, we should all be in favor of oppressive totalitarian regimes. There would be insuffcient wealth to leech off of as a means to generate an efficient or effective war machine.
If the measure is aggression, a totalitarian regime is vastly worse, but a democracy isn't far behind.
I guess it's not vastly worse. It does sounds funny that way.
Perhaps "seems vastly worse" might have been better.
Might be a locality issue also, democracies like causing damage at a distance, where it doesn't appear to hurt them locally. But a totalitarian regime must hurt locally at all levels in order to maintain power and enforce compliance. It's taking a long time for social democracies in the western world to get to the local oppression, so far they've managed to export most of that aggression to other parts of the world.
Also remember that we have probably and hopefully seen the end of Communist totalitarianism and have therefore seen the worse it had in store. On the other hand we have not yet seen the end of liberal democratic empire and its power, which could mean it has more in store for us, which could mean we have not yet seen the worst of it. It may be that our descendandts having seen all that liberal democratic imperialism has led to will conclude it seems vastly worse in agreggate than even Communist totalitarianism, etc.
MadMiser:... in the sense that centralised Stalinist states never go to war with each other?
True, they never went to war, though why anyone would assume that there must have been peace is anybody's guess. I think the Ukrainians might feel differently. The Soviets killed more pf their own citizens in peacetime than in war, and often by more horrific methods.