Democratic War

Geopolitics: Chairman of the Joint Chief's, Adm. Mike Mullen, tells us that he was up all night monitoring the South Korean Navy's recent artillery test. Which is to say that the US Navy was ready to shove nine yards of aircraft carrier flight deck up Kim Il Sung's gungus pung if the North had responded to the test fire.
This brings us to the broader issue of democracies and warfare. In all of history there has never been an example of two mature democracies going to war with each other. There have been wars between democratic components of a large democracy fractured by civil war. The American Civil War and several British colonial wars appeared to be wars between democracies but in truth were examples of big democracies breaking up or almost breaking up. What this tells us is that democracies hate war. Not only do democracies never attack other democracies, they have never started any of history's countless democracy vs. dictatorship wars.
Throughout the long march of time dictatorships always mistake democratic pacifism for military incompetence. Once roused, however, the bad guys always learn that the opposite is true.
The US Navy has been holding joint military exercises with the navies of Vietnam, Japan, South Korea, and India (all democracies except Vietnam). These exercises are not just for show. The US Navy is taking the first steps in welding these five navies into an alliance that will contain China's military ambitions like NATO did to the USSR.
If the US is successful in its containment strategy there will be enormous pressure on China to undergo democratic reform. The pressure will come from within China (students and intellectuals) and from democratic Taiwan as reunification moves closer and closer. There are stock market implications in all this. For instance, stock markets in democracies tend to have higher valuations than ones in dictatorships.