"Peace" Theories are Bogus

            Democracy and Capitalism are young; perhaps not as theories themselves, but rather in terms of their presence on the international stage.  The Democratic Peace Theory states that democracies do not go to war with other democracies, for a host of reasons.  However, before 1945, you could count the number of legitimate, liberal democracies on two or three hands.  The Capitalist Peace Theory states that states who trade with each other do not go to war with each other, also for a host of reasons.  However, both of these theories come up short in terms of their ambiguity – the words “Democracy”, “Trade”, and “War” are all indefinable terms that make individual peace theories nothing more than foolishly equating correlation with causation.  A combination of peace theories must be employed to come to a conclusion. 

            The DPT is intuitive.  Certainly it makes sense to anyone, regardless of political suaveness, that the United States, France, Japan, United Kingdom, Germany, etc. would never go to war with each other nowadays.  The DPT, however, hinges upon the existence of democracies.  Thus, the DPT is irrelevant prre-1776 and, arguably, until World War 2.  Liberal democracies simply have not existed in this world in large enough numbers for theorists to try to craft a theory around them.  It would even be difficult to consider countries like the UK (then, Great Britain) and France as liberal democracies during World War 2 since they still held colonies across the globe.  Could the United States even be considered a Democracy during the era of Manifest Destiny, where thousands upon thousands of Native Americans and Mexicans were forcibly and violently evicted from their lands, ironically in the name of spreading Democracy and “civilization”?  What, then, are we to make of the Falklands War between the UK and Argentina?  Both are Democracies, yet both had an open, armed, and violent conflict between each other over a few islands.  The DPT’s Achilles Hell lies in its very name – Democracies are difficult to define and, before World War 2, really didn’t exist in large enough numbers sufficient enough to legitimize a theory. 

            The Capitalist Peace Theory, too, runs in to this issue of defining itself.  What constitutes “trade”?  The American Colonies and Great Britain traded with each other from their inception in the 1500s until revolution in 1776 – certainly trade did not stop this conflict.  The Capitalist Peace Theory also fails to explain the relations between the United States and Cuba before and during the Cold War.  Under Fulgencio Batista, Cuba was a premiere destination for Americans.  The US was Cuba’s largest trading partner for sugar which, being Cuba’s main export, meant the US was Cuba’s largest trading partner in general too.  However, upon regime change, economic ties were cut with Cuba and the US repeatedly attempted to overthrow Castro, even by trying to incite an armed revolt.  While it may not have been a formal declaration of war, it was a fight nonetheless.  Cuba and the US were major trading partners and this trade relationship did not stop hostilities from breaking out between the two nations. 

            Both the CPT and the DPT have major flaws stemming from the inability to define the terms used within.  Democracies did not really exist in large enough numbers until after World War 2 - even then, it becomes very difficult to define which countries can get classified as Democracies.  At the same time, trade between nations has consistently proven ineffective in preventing conflicts between nations.  This is all without discussing the largest ambiguity of all: War.  The myriad of questions surrounding war would make an excellent topic for an entire dissertation.  However, it is evident that the Democratic and Capitalist Peace Theories are insufficient in explaining peace and war as a result of their inherent ambiguities.