ABSTRACT
The still prevailing opinion on 'democratic peace' has endorsed the 'double finding': that democracies keep peace with each other while being as warlike as any other kind of state. Growing evidence, however, indicates more peaceful behaviour by democracies (Rousseau et al., 1996; Gleditsch and Regre, 1997, 295; Geis, 2001; Russett and Oneal, 2001; Schultz, 2001, 137; Ruth and Allee, 2002b; MacMillan, 2003; Rasenclever, 2003). Still, scarce attention has been devoted to the fact that democracies, notably after the end of the great geopolitical contest with the 'evil empire', have tended to initiate and fight wars no one else would - either to preserve international law and the national sovereignty of states with which they are not allied against aggression, as in the Gulf war of 1991;1 to bring food to people against the armed resistance of warlords, as in Somalia in 1993; to terminate massive breaches of human rights as in Bosnia 1995 or Kosovo 1999; to prop up failed states as in Sierra Leone in 2002; or to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, democratize forcefully an erstwhile dictatorship, and reshape the strategic face of a region tom by repressive regimes and continuing violence as in Iraq in 2003.
