Michael Contarino correctly points out that in discussing democracy promotion, two issues can become entangled. One is what means should be employed. As I stated before, I am all in favor of democracy building by non-lethal means, via education, cultural exchanges, leadership training, fostering civil society projects, and much more. I do have an issue with using cruise missiles, bombers, and the Marines to build democracy.

First of all, I agree with Thomas Carothers, author of Aiding Democracy Abroad, who writes, "The idea that there's a small democracy inside every society waiting to be released just isn't true." And F. Gregory Gause III writes in his article, "Can Democracy Stop Terrorism?," that the "confidence that Washington has in its ability to predict, and even direct, the course of politics in other countries" is "unjustified."

The great difficulties that the United States and its allies are encountering in democratizing Afghanistan and Iraq are but new entries in a long list of failures. In an often cited 2003 policy brief entitled "Lessons from the Past: The American Record on Nation Building," prepared for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Minxin Pei and Sara Kasper examine U.S. attempts at forced democratization during the twentieth century. Pei and Kasper identify the following sixteen attempts at nation-building: in Cuba (1898-1902); in Panama (1903-36); in Cuba a second time (1906-09); Nicaragua (1909-33); Haiti (1915-34); Cuba a third time (1917-22); the Dominican Republic (1916-24); West Germany (1945-49); Japan (1945-52); the Dominican Republic a second time (1965-66); Cambodia (1970-73); South Vietnam (1964-73); Grenada (1983); Panama a second time (1989); Haiti a second time (1994-96); and Afghanistan (2001-present).

Of these efforts, eleven flatly failed to establish a functioning democracy, while Afghanistan remains inconclusive and problematic. Only four of sixteen succeeded: West Germany, Japan, Grenada, and Panama (in 1989). Grenada, however, is a very small island, and the population of Panama is under 3 million. West Germany and Japan thus constitute the only major examples of successful democratization by the United States in large, complex societies. In the cases of Germany and Japan, important factors were present which made successful democratization there possible, factors not available in the other nations under study--including a very high level of education, a sizeable middle class, a relatively high per capita income, and ethnic homogeneity, among others.

Second, I have grave doubts about killing large number of people in order to free them. If they want to live up to the call "give me liberty or give me death," that should be their choice.

Moreover, the precept that only democracies are reliable partners in peace is a misleading one. Russia appears on most of the lists of the budding or new democracies that the Neocons keep brandishing. This did not prevent Russia from attacking Georgia. Nor did the state of democracy in India and Pakistan prevent conflict in 1999. Ditto Israel and Lebanon in 2005.

Finally, I could not agree more with Michael Contarino on a point he helped Governor Richardson make during his election campaign--that realists need not be anti-moralists. In effect, as I see it, unrealistic pursuit of fine ideals weakens them by undermining the credibility of those who could promote them if they pursued a more realistic campaign. Such unrealistic strategies also squander scarce resources that could be used to do much good--and serve our narrow interests--if they were more realistically applied. In short, that which is right and that which is mighty need to be combined.

Amitai Etzioni is a professor of international relations at The George Washington University. For more discussion, see Security First (Yale 2007). To contact him, write comnet@gwu.edu.
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