In his executive summary, Perils of a democratic peace, Mike Brookes claims that the Democratic Peace Theory appears to be based on two assumptions that aren't necessarily reality. The first, being that democracy is welcome and desirable across the globe. The second, being that democratic peace will ensure the security of states.

Both of these assumptions pose no guarantees and therefore may pose a problem to the Democratic Peace Theory.

To investigate the validity of the Democratic Peace Theory we must first look at the history of the involvement of democracies in wars. We must also look at what the present reasons for democracies not going to war are, and what some of the possible problems facing the possibility

In his book Never at War: Spencer R. Weart found, after studying the history of wars between well established democracies that during the past century there have been none. This could very well lead us to say that it is true that democracies don't go to war with one another. However there have been some cases of near misses between democracies, such as the French-German Saar Crisis of 1921.

This is a very real consequence of what would happen if a war were to happen.

More recently in history, democracies have killed thousands of people in the bombings of Hamburg and Hiroshima. However in his book International Relations (Conflict and co-operation at the turn of the 21st century) Conway Henderson states that the end of the Cold War in 1991 heralded a new era in which democracy, for the first time, would be without a major ideological rival. Generally, democracy has surged forward since the end of the Cold War, with about half of the 200 states in the world today being democracies or near democracies. Although many of these states are new and fragile as democracies, never in history have so many democracies existed. However there are no guarantees that democracy will survive in its new host countries or that it will successfully move to other countries.

In his book, Never at War: Why Democracies Will Not Fight One Another, Specer R. Weart states that the idea that free peoples would not go to war with each other had been developed by 1785. At a time when there were scarcely any democracies in existence the philosopher Immanuel Kant wrote in Perpetual Peace that a world where every state is a democracy would be a world of perpetual peace. However, democratic belligerence has been such a problem that it can be found almost everywhere democracies have existed. Even as early as fifth century BC the rocky coast where Dubrovnik now stands was the scene of deadly wars involving free governments.

Another factor influencing the spread of democracy is the belief that democracy can only come into e

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Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)