| No, you've not laid out the logic by which that statement follows from the others. > America with its democracy exporting foreign policy gives the rational that democracies don't go to war. I'd actually argue quite a lot with this: the US does not export democracy, it exports capitalism and calls it democracy. It's quite happy to overthrow democratic socialist governments. Really the key factor is that trading partners don't go to war, because then it's unprofitable and/or they don't have enough independent infrastructure to survive. You can't go to war with your nose to spite your face. This is partly why, despite the bad relations between the EU and Russia and the small war in Ukraine, the gas pipeline remains untouched. They need the money and we need the gas. And your inference that I'm American is also wrong. I'm an Englishman living in Scotland supporting Scottish independence within the EU. In fact, I spent a lot of time trying to be a "reasonable" Euroskeptic for years, but this year of the referendum I gave up because the unreasonable side has taken over. Yes, the EU is not very democratic and parts of the EU get economically steamrollered. Guess what - this happens within countries too. Greece is to the EU as 80s Liverpool and the "north" was to the Thatcher government: abandoned. Leaving the EU does not make Europe go away, it doesn't solve any of the economic or social problems, but it does remove a mechanism for resolving them peacefully. The UK is not very democratic on close inspection either, and all these threats to remove one of the few bits of black-letter constitutional law we do have - ECHR - are really not encouraging. |
In the same vain, economic sanctions are a prelude to war and in many cases considered an act of war. Which is why the EUs economic sanctions against Russia are troubling. Such sanctions would not be possible without the EU.
I too have many problems with hypocritical US foreign policy.
I did not infer you were American, I assumed for sake of argument in an effort to tailor my response. I then let you know about my assumption so I could be corrected. Which you did, and thank you.
I don't understand what you're trying to refute. I agree with all of your points; EU was started to stop wars, trade and not democracy prevents wars, and the EU is undemocratic. All of these points are inline with the statement that "many people believe that a democratic Europe is a war risk" which is what I thought you were refuting?
I think economic sanctions is a bigger war risk than democracy, but I'm not "many people"