[roenxi]

> Democracies have safeguards in place that complicates many radical actions, such as starting wars.

The US gets involved in a new war every 2-3 years [0]. In the 21st century pretty much every time they start something it has been effectively unprovoked. Democracies are notably more bloodthirsty than dictatorships; dictatorships need to preserve their troops at home to suppress dissidents but can't afford for the army generals to be too powerful which leads to a level of self-contradiction and ineffectiveness in undemocratic armies.

It is quite possible that if Russia were a democracy, the only change would be that they prosecuted the war more competently.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_the_Uni...