Amusing Anomalies

We Can't Force Democracy

This is an excellent article by Robert D. Kaplan, discussing Iraq and the Hobbesian challenge of trying to create a democracy in a world that has no democratic tradition. The Hobbesian challenge is simply this, in a world full of violence, the first order is security. Democracy in such a world is a second order desire. This type of analysis was touched on by George Will, a while ago, but the analysis here is quite good and quite focused.

As Max Weber noted, a state that can not reasonably claim to have a monopoly on the use of force, is a state in name only. In Iraq, where Shiite militias, Sunni insurgents, former Ba'athists, and foreign Jihadists all exercise violence openly and wantonly, there can be no security and thus no real state.