By Chad Silber

President Bush broke from tradition in his inaugural speech Thursday. Inaugurals are commonly poetic (think JFK’s “Ask not …” speech) and inspirational (think FDR’s “We have nothing to fear …” speech), but instead Americans received a militaristic call to arms.

The speech was separated into an aggressive foreign policy statement and a vague domestic agenda, wrapped in an aura of freedom and peace.

The foreign policy implications are what should be noted by the nation. Bush believes in a theory that was espoused in the writings of John Stuart Mill and Immanuel Kant, enlarged upon by Woodrow Wilson and imprinted into our memory by Bill Clinton referred to as the Democratic Peace Theory.

It is argued that although democracies go to war as often as non-democratic states, they rarely, if ever, fight one another. The underlying theme is that the more democratic nations in the international community, the less conflict in the world.

This sounds reasonable, but the problem lies with the myopic view we have of international relations. Throughout the vast history of warfare, the period of time since World War II is hardly long enough a period to base a theory on. Bush, referring indirectly to this time span in his speech, said, “It’s an odd time to doubt [the Democratic Peace Theory] after forty years of peace.” But forty years of peace are hardly record-setting.

There are many scholars who doubt the theory. The reasons include that:

• States are sometimes more prone to war when they are in the midst of a democratic transition, which implies that efforts to export democracy might actually make things worse.

• The apparent absence of war between democracies is due to the way that democracy has been defined.

• Evidence that democracies do not fight each other is confined to the post-1945 era.

The world at large also noticed Bush’s aggressive tone. This was no “thanks for electing me, I swear to uphold the Constitution” speech. He stated, “The survival of freedom in our homeland increasingly depends on liberty in other lands and we will encourage reform in other governments.” We may have a dangerous road ahead.