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[Techhead]

I don't think it's entirely out of the question that a democratic system can help with that. People are less inclined to start murdering one another if they believe they can change things peacefully and legally.

Not necessarily. In a lot of cultures, particularly the one I come from, the quickest way for regime or political change has always been

a) bribery
b) shooting people

This is especially common in places that suffer state failure, or worse, where the state is actively oppressing its members. Democracy is definitely a useful tool, but it can and will be overshadowed in places where political power comes in 5.56x45mm packages. (and machetes)

The quickest way for regime change is usually shooting people. (Or beheading. Depends on tech level.) For all of their downsides, bloody coups d'etat are tend to be time savers. If you have an army, shoot the right people and you can have martial law in under a month.

Contrast: How long has the 2012 election season been going? We still have four and a half months until the election, and 2 more months after that until the inauguration.

Also, power can be found in bullet-shaped packages anywhere. Most successful democracies retain a potent monopoly on violence, with weapon-control laws (I'm talking tanks and jets here, not AK-47s) forming a barrier to entry, preventing 'competitors' from entering the 'market'.

Note: I don't advocate violent revolutions. I'm merely pointing out they have definite time-saving potential.

[Josephus]

The monopoly on violence was mentioned earlier, and confusion over it was what sparked this whole tangent, yeah.

Now here's the thing: while the wellspring of power is usually boolet (or tank, or jet-fighter, or large missiles), in most industrialized nations, you're unlikely to be able to deploy boolet without getting smacked down by the state - thus, you're unable to affect real change at all. Meanwhile, you have elections in developing nations where the surest way to a victory is to shoot some of your competitor's supporters (or your competitor), with barely a chance of retaliation from the central authority. This is a failed state.

[Techhead]

The monopoly on violence was mentioned earlier, and confusion over it was what sparked this whole tangent, yeah.

Now here's the thing: while the wellspring of power is usually boolet (or tank, or jet-fighter, or large missiles), in most industrialized nations, you're unlikely to be able to deploy boolet without getting smacked down by the state - thus, you're unable to affect real change at all. Meanwhile, you have elections in developing nations where the surest way to a victory is to shoot some of your competitor's supporters (or your competitor), with barely a chance of retaliation from the central authority. This is a failed state.

Exactly, a monopoly on violence is a necessarily evil. It can be used to establish an authoritarian state, but it is also used in democracies to guarantee a non-violent transfer of power.

When you have to power to shoot your competitor and his supporters without retaliation, and the willingness to do so, you are the central authority.

[Sheb]

Yeah, but you gotta draw the line between a state's monopoly of violence within it's own borders (which is a lesser evil in a democracy at least) and a state monopoly of military might all over the world. The difference being that the state is supposed to have internal checks and balance that don't exist on the world stage.

[scriver]

In a lot of cultures, particularly the one I come from,

Where are you from, if you don't mind me asking? I mean, beside first century Palestine.

[Phmcw]

Change is gradual, and hard.
You have to establish a national identity before you can even have a state, and most of those countries, having unnatural borders, lack it.

Not to mention that European countries are really good at turning half the population of a country against the other half.

One funny thing in recent history is that a am under the impression that the US public opinion never understood what is a war. Hell I don't think the US army understood what is a war, and that's what brought all their defeats after ww2.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

One funny thing in recent history is that a am under the impression that the US public opinion never understood what is a war. Hell I don't think the US army understood what is a war, and that's what brought all their defeats after ww2.

Firstly, what do you even mean by "what is a war"?

Secondly:
Korea wasn't a defeat, it was a stalemate. Unless you like nuclear war that was as good as that situation was going to get. That isn't even conjecture, MacArthur openly advocated nuclear strikes on China to break their will to fight.

Vietnam was lost by politicians, not soldiers.

[Phmcw]

One funny thing in recent history is that a am under the impression that the US public opinion never understood what is a war. Hell I don't think the US army understood what is a war, and that's what brought all their defeats after ww2.

Firstly, what do you even mean by "what is a war"?

Secondly:
Korea wasn't a defeat, it was a stalemate. Unless you like nuclear war that was as good as that situation was going to get. That isn't even conjecture, MacArthur openly advocated nuclear strikes on China to break their will to fight.

Vietnam was lost by politicians, not soldiers.

A war is usually the total annihilation of the poeples adhering to the identity of the group you have a grudge with.
Winning korea would have been easy, were you to segregate ethnicaly the country, raise one part against the other then breaking the oposite part (partly by slaughtering systematically/ enslave those who opose you).
Save for exeptional circumstance, you have to completely break the will to fight of those who oppose you, and then erase their identity, be it religion, philosophy, social structure, anything. That's why europeans were so anxious to evangelize, why English divided Hutu and Tutsi,  why communists slaughtered the middle class and why the nato shit its pants everytime it think about anonymous, a diffuse indentity, hostile to them in the very heart of their countries. In war identity is everything.

[Sheb]

Korea is actually pretty homogenous. You've Korean and that's it.

[Phmcw]

Korea is actually pretty homogenous. You've Korean and that's it.

Then it's more complicated, but Rwanda was homogenous before the English. They serparated hutu and Tutsi based on their "racial qualities" and introduced a division that never existed before.
If the identity doesn't exist, you create it.

Edit : clarification, hutu and tutsi were something like aristocrats and peasants. English made them two distinct ethnic groups.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

A war is usually the total annihilation of the poeples adhering to the identity of the group you have a grudge with.

You're the one who doesn't understand war, then. What you're describing is genocide.

[Phmcw]

A war is usually the total annihilation of the poeples adhering to the identity of the group you have a grudge with.

You're the one who doesn't understand war, then. What you're describing is genocide.

Genocide is one of the form that can take war, but you can culturally subjugate, or use political and/or religious indoctrination. It's the identity that you must erase, not the individual.

Edit : of course terrifying the opposing group and killing its core members is usually the first step. Execute it's priest, sages, politicians,.... or subjugate them.
Look at the Romans, Huns or English strategy.

[RedKing]

 

Except that Korean nationalism is kind of a thing in both halves. They were never fighting (and still aren't, in the rhetorical war) to wipe out the other side, but rather to reunify Korea under their side's benevolent and wise leader and free their Korean brothers from the yoke of tyranny.

Likewise, Vietnam wasn't winnable. At best, we might have pulled a Korean-style tie. Big difference was the terrain was a hell of a lot tougher to fight in and more or less negated American airpower.


Africa was a lot easier to pull that "divide and conquer" shit on because it really is a huge polyglot of ethnic and linguistic pockets. East Asia is a good deal more homogenous. About the only major Asian country that would be susceptible to something like that would be India.

[Gantolandon]

There are several things you need to even have something resembling modern democracy. One of the most important is the people who actually know that they have the right to demand something for their governments and influence them peacefully. Since when a foreign military invasion does communicate that?

It would have any credibility if it had been done like in Libya. In Iraq, USA controlled every step - they made a decision to invade, overthrew the old leader and begun to install a new government. Of course, the local population had no way to tell them to get out before they said it's over and their country matured enough to govern itself. US soldiers were not in any way amenable to the local authorities, which relied on them to protect itself from other Iraqians.

Ah, and the whole thing was engineered by the same people, who used to treat the entire region like their private drilling platform and once overthrew a democratically elected leader of a neighbor country.

[Hanslanda]

A war is usually the total annihilation of the poeples adhering to the identity of the group you have a grudge with.

You're the one who doesn't understand war, then. What you're describing is genocide.

Genocide is one of the form that can take war, but you can culturally subjugate, or use political and/or religious indoctrination. It's the identity that you must erase, not the individual.

Edit : of course terrifying the opposing group and killing its core members is usually the first step. Execute it's priest, sages, politicians,.... or subjugate them.
Look at the Romans, Huns or English strategy.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

War is an organized, armed, and often a prolonged conflict that is carried on between states, nations, or other parties typified by extreme aggression, social disruption, and usually high mortality. War should be understood as an actual, intentional and widespread armed conflict between political communities, and therefore is defined as a form of political violence. The set of techniques used by a group to carry out war is known as warfare. An absence of war (and other violence) is usually called peace.

Straight from Dr. Wikipedia.
War is not the extermination or eradication of an identity, group of people or group of identities. War is the physical combat carried out to further political machinations.
The Romans usually left locals in charge of their own government, but just added their 'Governors' above the local politicians. They also usually tried to get the locals to join their auxiliaries, to promote a sense of unity with the Roman people.
The Huns did the same. They came in, asked for tribute and deference in exchange for near-autonomy, and if this was not achieved, they butchered and destroyed as a warning to those who would not choose to join them. They did not execute politicians or local seers or wisemen. They left those men in their positions of power, and provided a liason to keep the community in line with the Huns expectations.
I don't know about the English.
The fact of the matter is, most successful empires did NOT kill enemy leaders. They embraced them, and USED them to keep the locals in line. It is far easier to control someone when the person they look up to is telling them to do as you say, than to try to control them through brute force. People resent brute force deeply.

I'm not sure where you got your ideas of what war is, but they are not exactly correct.