ABSTRACT
Self-determination is surely a primary—if not the primary—indicium of legitimacy. The purpose of allowing people to liberate themselves, or to establish their own democratic governments, is not simply to force them to demonstrate their moral fiber. Professor Igor Lukashuk comments on the prospective US acquiescence in a Soviet intervention in Romania in 1989: Only the significant increase in mutual trust between the USSR and the United States has made it possible for the United States to look favorably on potential humanitarian intervention by the USSR." The growth of trust between the superpowers breaks what Robert Jervis has identified as the "security dilemma," whereby every move made by one state to enhance its security automatically threatens its neighboring states, who take measures to enhance their security. To the extent that the spread of democracy breeds openness and openness breeds trust, the international community must indeed make a collective effort to promote democratic regimes through a graduated series of interventionary measures.
