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> If the US can attack cheaply on the ground (as in with no US casualty) and not be deterred by a nuclear response, war is just bound to happen. This gets at t

> If the US can attack cheaply on the ground (as in with no US casualty) and not be deterred by a nuclear response, war is just bound to happen. This gets at the real reason there have ever been some long spans without huge wars: stable balance of power. Usually in world history when the World Order changed much there were big wars involved. In the 20th century the USSR and China and NATO formed a relatively stable set of opposing forces.

ethbro 11y ago
Also, the adage that democracies are disinclined to [suddenly] go to war. Which builds in a moderating effect to the calculus when at least one side has democratic government.
- gshubert17 11y ago
  What about coups such as the US overthrow of Iran in 1953? [1][2] Both seemed to be democracies at the time. A coup is not a war, but it isn't peace either. Is it the lack of a big shooting war? Or the power imbalance between the overthrower and the overthrowee? [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covert_United_States_foreign_regime_change_actions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covert_United_States_foreign_re...
  - ethbro 11y ago
    The caveat would probably be that democracies only avoid wars which require democratic decisions to set in motion. I would say that most covert US meddling in foreign governments was covert for exactly that reason. .. probably some of the anti-Communist actions were the closest thing to democratically-approved intervention. And a lot of that was still covert.
- dragonwriter 11y ago
  > Also, the adage that democracies are disinclined to [suddenly] go to war. The usual form of that is that no two democracies have ever gone to war with each other, and even then it requires such an excessively restrictive definition of "democracy" and/or "war" to be true that the statistically expected number of inter-democracy wars would be (to the nearest whole integer), given the number of wars over time and the number of democracies and the periods for which they have existed, would be zero. Its not even usually claimed that democracies are less prone than non-democracies to going to war with non-democracies.

ethbro 11y ago

Also, the adage that democracies are disinclined to [suddenly] go to war. Which builds in a moderating effect to the calculus when at least one side has democratic government.

gshubert17 11y ago
What about coups such as the US overthrow of Iran in 1953? [1][2] Both seemed to be democracies at the time. A coup is not a war, but it isn't peace either. Is it the lack of a big shooting war? Or the power imbalance between the overthrower and the overthrowee? [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1953_Iranian_coup_d%27%C3%A9tat [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covert_United_States_foreign_regime_change_actions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covert_United_States_foreign_re...
- ethbro 11y ago
  The caveat would probably be that democracies only avoid wars which require democratic decisions to set in motion. I would say that most covert US meddling in foreign governments was covert for exactly that reason. .. probably some of the anti-Communist actions were the closest thing to democratically-approved intervention. And a lot of that was still covert.
dragonwriter 11y ago
> Also, the adage that democracies are disinclined to [suddenly] go to war. The usual form of that is that no two democracies have ever gone to war with each other, and even then it requires such an excessively restrictive definition of "democracy" and/or "war" to be true that the statistically expected number of inter-democracy wars would be (to the nearest whole integer), given the number of wars over time and the number of democracies and the periods for which they have existed, would be zero. Its not even usually claimed that democracies are less prone than non-democracies to going to war with non-democracies.