# No two democracies have ever gone to war against each other? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 24, 2003, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-two-democracies-have-ever-gone-to-war-against-each-other/163823 "2003-03-24T18:02:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![dalovindj](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/65b543/32.png) [@dalovindj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dalovindj)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2003, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-two-democracies-have-ever-gone-to-war-against-each-other/163823/1 "2003-03-24T18:02:35Z")
Someone mentioned this “fact” to me and I am a bit skeptical. My first questions when presented with this info (which I had vaguely remebered hearing before - I think Clinton mentioned it at some point) were as follows: **A**. What do you mean by democracy? I think it is important to spend some time with the definition, because as I understand it, even the US is not a pure democracy. I’m not even sure that a true democracy has ever existed. Are we talking about countries with _some_ elected officials being the only qualifier? Hell, are we talking about UN recognized countries or selp-proclaimed countries? What about non-country’s (such as Palestine) with elected officials? **B**. What do you mean by war? Do military actions count? Police actions? In the last 50 years there have been many violent conflicts which involved no official declaration of War. Does this then mean that some democracies may have taken some shots at each other, but full out war has never been declared? I’m trying to do a google search but half the damn links I click are broken. Damn political science majors and their half-assed web site upkeep. As I find any useful links I’ll place em here, but I figured I’d go ahead and start the thread to see if it helps since the search is frustrating me. If this feels more GDish, forgive me. I suspect that this particular fact may be up for debate, but posted it here in case I am wrong and there is a a factual answer. I am also interested in what conclusions we can safely draw if this is true. It seemed like the person discussing this with me was jumping to conclusions based on this “fact” that don’t neccesarily follow. This also may become a GD-ish area of discussion, so if this goes to far into such territory, Mods please feel free to move or close this thread and I will start another in the proper forum. DaLovin’ Dj ---
**Author:** ![Pencil\_Pusher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/b38774/32.png) [@Pencil\_Pusher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pencil_Pusher)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2003, 6:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-two-democracies-have-ever-gone-to-war-against-each-other/163823/2 "2003-03-24T18:31:44Z")
Without doing any independant research it is my understanding the CIA was used to oust the following democratically elected leaders: - Mossedeq in Iran - Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala - Salvadore Allende in Chile ---
**Author:** ![dalovindj](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/65b543/32.png) [@dalovindj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dalovindj)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2003, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-two-democracies-have-ever-gone-to-war-against-each-other/163823/3 "2003-03-24T18:39:33Z")
So it’s a semantic thing then. It’s not that no two democracies have ever taken aggressive action against each other, only that no one has ever defined such actions as “War”. Does that sound right? ---
**Author:** ![Arturas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/45deac/32.png) [@Arturas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arturas)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2003, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-two-democracies-have-ever-gone-to-war-against-each-other/163823/4 "2003-03-24T18:46:33Z")
Wouldn’t the US Civil War count? I don’t remember how Jefferson was elected or appointed but the individual states certainly remained democratic. ---
**Author:** ![Insecta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/3da27b/32.png) [@Insecta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Insecta)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2003, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-two-democracies-have-ever-gone-to-war-against-each-other/163823/5 "2003-03-24T18:48:09Z")
Right now I can only think of a fairly dubious counter-example, which probably rises from disagreements with the definition of ‘Democracy’: The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) went to war South Korea. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2003, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-two-democracies-have-ever-gone-to-war-against-each-other/163823/6 "2003-03-24T18:59:42Z")
We just covered this here a few weeks ago. ---
**Author:** ![Schnitte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/schnitte/32/9033_2.png) [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)\ **Post date:** [March 24, 2003, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-two-democracies-have-ever-gone-to-war-against-each-other/163823/7 "2003-03-24T19:29:20Z")
Not only we, even Cecil did. [http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3\_328.html](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_328.html) ---
**Author:** ![dalovindj](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/65b543/32.png) [@dalovindj](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dalovindj)\ **Post date:** [March 25, 2003, 6:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/no-two-democracies-have-ever-gone-to-war-against-each-other/163823/8 "2003-03-25T06:59:24Z")
My foolishness knows no bounds. Blinded by the google hype, I forgot to search **Cecil** ’s archives. A cardinal sin if ever there was one. Apologies for the waisted bandwidth, thanks for the tip, and praises to the Grand Master for doing what he does . . . DaLovin’ Dj