What if - US army confronted the Indian force on 1971 ?

**zraver** · 18 May 12,, 20:21

Originally Posted by Albany Rifles

Z,

Your posit on Lincoln looking to the 1864 election as his primary motivationin his actions for the Trent Affair flies in the face of over 10,000 volumes of scholarship. If there was any election he was looking at it would have been the 1862 midterms, not the general in 1864.

I am referrign less to the 64 Election than to Lincoln's political survival, if the Union fell, his political life was over, ironic that saving the Union cost him his physical life.

And lets not forget that the spectre of Prince Wheat and King Cod also had an impact on the Europeans. War with the US would cripple markets and economies in both hemispheres and lead to unrest in populations dependent on American foodstuffs.

But according to Shek, these considerations by leaders which are premised that the leaders will have to answer to the populace are not conditions of DPT, only current public demands. War had it erupted would have ruined political careers at the ballot box.

Shek,

Your observation suffers as evidence as it only provides correlation, and even at that, it's weak. Democracy is a newcomer to the nation-state, really only building its number after WWII. Thus, you have both a very short historical period to build a case and a small number of observations. Then you have to disintangle other causal factors from the form of government - is it Cold War balancing that prevented conflict, regional influence that prevented conflict, geography and resources (or lack there off), net assessment between two potential adversaries (e.g., the US has a lot of resources, but it's not worth fighting us).

it is generally accepted that the modern democratic nation state predates the overall concept of nation states as a whole. Iceland being the oldest, followed by an imperfect United Kingdom and then the USA, with non-democratic nation states emerging from the ashes of the Napoleonic Wars. Secondly, all I attempted to do was show that the paper refuses to look at the relevant factors of why democracies don't go to war and cherry picked (poorly) just a few items to try and refute DPT.

**Double Edge** · 19 May 12,, 06:06

Z,

How long does it take for a democracy to turn mature. A few fair elections uninterrupted by any coups. For this to be the expectation, will take time. If that expectation is there then its a mature democracy.

Let's imagine the scenario of Israel surrounded by democracies. Is Israel better off or not ?

There will always be the west bank & Gaza. They have to go democratic too.

Terrorism against Israel should go down from Non-pal sources. There might still be some residual Pal elements left but it will become harder for them to operate.

So it would appear that DPT is in Israel's favour

**Shek** · 19 May 12,, 12:46

Z,
I realized that we've been dancing around the wrong question, so here's the right one to reframe the main argument you've made.

Lincoln decided not to fight over the Trent affair because:
a) the US would lose to the UK and he would be punished by the voters for losing and the second and third order effects that would follow.
b) the US would fight another democracy and he would be punished by the voters for fighting another democracy.

Remember, DPT stipulates that democracies don't fight other democracies because they are a democracy, so the first answer breaks DPT's causal chain while the second answer would not falsify DPT. So far, discussion of a future political election has been invoked, and while the evidence doesn't support the election as centerpiece of the decision, for the sake of argument we'll let the conversation play out in this direction.

**zraver** · 19 May 12,, 23:37

Originally Posted by Shek

Z,
I realized that we've been dancing around the wrong question, so here's the right one to reframe the main argument you've made.

Lincoln decided not to fight over the Trent affair because:
a) the US would lose to the UK and he would be punished by the voters for losing and the second and third order effects that would follow.
b) the US would fight another democracy and he would be punished by the voters for fighting another democracy.

Remember, DPT stipulates that democracies don't fight other democracies because they are a democracy, so the first answer breaks DPT's causal chain while the second answer would not falsify DPT. So far, discussion of a future political election has been invoked, and while the evidence doesn't support the election as centerpiece of the decision, for the sake of argument we'll let the conversation play out in this direction.

No DPT claims democracies don't fight because the leadership on both sides has to answer to the populace in short order and because feelings of hostility are naturally reduced to a simmer from a boil because of shared cultural and economic attraction. That these two factors on both sides of the flashpoint combine to create conditions where war breaking out is highly unlikely.

Lincoln chose not to fight a two front war because it would end his career and legacy becuase it would end the Union. He had already proven he was willing to take office no matter the cost in life and treasure. Likely becuase he thought the Union would prevail even if a civil war did breakout. However the UK jumping in would have dashed those hopes and his future against the rocks.

Again, my point was merely to point out the paper does not do nearly a good enough job of laying out the factors that go into the decision to make or not make war and is thus confounded.

**Shek** · 21 May 12,, 13:06

Originally Posted by zraver

No DPT claims democracies don't fight because the leadership on both sides has to answer to the populace in short order and because feelings of hostility are naturally reduced to a simmer from a boil because of shared cultural and economic attraction. That these two factors on both sides of the flashpoint combine to create conditions where war breaking out is highly unlikely.

1. Wrong. A major strain of DPT is normative - democracies don't fight one another because the other is a democracy, and so it's like declaring war on your brother.
2. Shared cultural and economic attraction means that culture and economics are the causal factors, not democracy.

If it's boil to simmer that works and democracy has nothing to do with it, then democracies shouldn't fight, at least not be the cause of it. Yet, we see democracies instigate wars of choice, which means that boil to simmer can't explain away. Which means we're left to the normative values holding back democracies from fighting one another, but you've already rejected that causality, which is a major strain of DPT.

Originally Posted by zraver

Lincoln chose not to fight a two front war because it would end his career and legacy becuase it would end the Union. He had already proven he was willing to take office no matter the cost in life and treasure. Likely becuase he thought the Union would prevail even if a civil war did breakout. However the UK jumping in would have dashed those hopes and his future against the rocks.

Actually, Lincoln didn't expect a clash of arms. He was prepared, but felt that as time passed, the boil would reduce to a simmer and the Unionists would prevail and the wayward states would kluge back together. However, the Secessionists owned the Confederate democracy and brought the clash of arms. Even after Fort Sumter, the expectation was a short war. Talking about taking office despite huge costs is a flawed ex post facto analysis that also implicitly lays blame to Lincoln for the choice of the Confederacy. And again, you cite a realist approach that looks at balance of power regardless of the internal regime, which is not DPT.

Originally Posted by zraver

Again, my point was merely to point out the paper does not do nearly a good enough job of laying out the factors that go into the decision to make or not make war and is thus confounded.

No, the paper merely needs to falsify DPT's causal chain to falsify DPT. If avoids survivorship bias and doesn't conflate other non-DPT causal factors with DPT.