Challenge: Democracies at War post WW2

With a POD no earlier than the end of the Second World War, your goal is to get two first world democracies at war with each other. Now, I doubt there will be an easy one sentence answer to this, but I still think that it is possible if there is a scenario through which the two countries steadily have worsening relations and then go to war--maybe even just through a series of miscommunications. I mean, sure, it is implausible that a nation like New Zealand would want to go to war with France, but perhaps if they sent ships to disrupt nuclear tests, and they're accidentally fired upon...etc.
 
Does the 1999 Kosovo War count as an OTL example?

I don't think Milosevic was a full-blown dictator, although he did shut down an anti-government media outlet during the war itself.

Or did you mean countries that were always part of the post-WWII "West"?

Hmmm...maybe France tries to stop German unification by force and ends up in a war with West Germany?
 

Cook

Banned
I think we’ll stick with the definition of democracy that is in general usage as the Scrabble Nuts like to say; being that they’ve had multi-party elections that are recognisably free and fair, a free press and an opposition that doesn’t get thrown in jail or murdered every second day.

Therefore; Zimbabwe is not a democracy yet but Indonesia is.
:)
 
multi-party elections that are recognisably free and fair

Depends entirely on who's doing the recognizing.

a free press

Overwhelming concentration of media in private ownership and unsheakeable groupthink doesn't seem to disqualify several western democracies at all, leading me to think this is also only subjectively meaningful.

and an opposition that doesn’t get thrown in jail or murdered every second day.

That's a much better one, however.
 

wormyguy

Banned
2006 Lebanon war?

1999 Indo-Pakistani war?

1981 and 1995 Ecaudor-Peruvian wars?

Nagorno-Karabakh war?
 
2006 Lebanon war?

1999 Indo-Pakistani war?

1981 and 1995 Ecaudor-Peruvian wars?

Nagorno-Karabakh war?
Not exactly what most people consider first world is it? India and Pakistan arnt. Ecaudor and Peru i dont know anything about. The NK war was between developing countries.
 

wormyguy

Banned
Not exactly what most people consider first world is it? India and Pakistan arnt. Ecaudor and Peru i dont know anything about. The NK war was between developing countries.
Oh, I didn't see the "first world" qualifier.

I dunno, maybe you could have something between Greece and Turkey (perhaps not first world, but close enough).
 
Maybe a Spain-French war :). Over andorra?
Hm France directly invades Spain during the SCW? Or some random rebel republic (Catalonia?) in northern spain appears and attacks both France and other Spanish forces.

Does anyone know enough about Ireland to say if the Provos were strong enough to provoke a war if they get South Irish backing?
 
Does the 1999 Kosovo War count as an OTL example?

I don't think Milosevic was a full-blown dictator, although he did shut down an anti-government media outlet during the war itself.

Or did you mean countries that were always part of the post-WWII "West"?

Hmmm...maybe France tries to stop German unification by force and ends up in a war with West Germany?


I don't know that much about the Kosovo War, but I am not sure that would meet the 'First World' standard. As for a German Unification war, what would be the POD? I think it'd need to be something to get France REALLY riled up.



Oh, I didn't see the "first world" qualifier.

I dunno, maybe you could have something between Greece and Turkey (perhaps not first world, but close enough).


I think Greece and Turkey are good options for the challenge, because they are both very nationalistic Democracies that are also enemies. Perhaps postpone the Cyprus Crisis to post-Cold War?



Hm France directly invades Spain during the SCW? Or some random rebel republic (Catalonia?) in northern spain appears and attacks both France and other Spanish forces.

Does anyone know enough about Ireland to say if the Provos were strong enough to provoke a war if they get South Irish backing?


SCW is pre WW2.
 

Sachyriel

Banned
Mexico screws up a single anti-cartel operation in the 1980, Tony Montana-esque guy comes out of nowhere, brings down the government and the US invades as the Mexican police finish off the big cartel threat of Tony-guy. However the USA wants to make sure there are no more drug cartels, and won't just pull out.
 
I think Greece and Turkey are good options for the challenge, because they are both very nationalistic Democracies that are also enemies. Perhaps postpone the Cyprus Crisis to post-Cold War?

Well there are quite a few issues between the two, Cyprus, rights to the Aegean, military incidents. However the public, politicians, and NATO have no interest in seeing the two go to war, and even when things have been tense things didn't reach the point of armed conflict, as well Greece's government most of the time doesn't like escalate the situation.

It's doable, however it's going to take quite a lot to get them to go to war.
 

Rush Tarquin

Gone Fishin'
I always thought Greece and Turkey were by far the best shot at this, unless they're not first world enough for you. A Falklands conflict prior to the Agentinian financial crisis would be a good option too, since the Argentinian economy was in pretty good shape. Hard to whip up a sense of grievance during the good times though.
 
I don't know that much about the Kosovo War, but I am not sure that would meet the 'First World' standard. As for a German Unification war, what would be the POD? I think it'd need to be something to get France REALLY riled up.
Im pretty sure Serbia is a first world nation, it has a developed economy and population along with modern and well trained military forces, what more do you want for a 1st world definition? Then again Kosovo is not a nation and NATO only got involved in air attacks. So we ether need Albania to invade Serbia or have NATO deploy ground troops.
 
I have a few ideas other than Greece-Turkey, although they are probably at least borderline-ASB:

One is to somehow have some sort of rabid, ultranationalist party win a general election in Spain after Franco dies, and this government for revanchist reasons or to distract the population from domestic turmoil, makes an attempt against Gibraltar in a move reminiscent of the Falklands War.

Another has to do with the International Court of Justice in the Hague. As one may recall, conservative Republicans in Congress were up in arms over this, refusing to permit the treaty to be ratified, while claiming it was an affront to American sovereignty and would be used by 'leftists & anti-Americans' to prosecute American soldiers and officials on "trumped-up politically motivated charges of war crimes, waging aggressive war" & other stuff along those lines. One even went so far as to submit a bill, which if passed & enacted into law, would have required the president to order an operation to rescue any Americans held in custody for trial there by military force. Now if this bill did pass, some American did end up awaiting trial in the Hague (whether or not the charges were legitimate is irrelevant), and a US president willing to order such a mission carried out by the US military which obeys those orders (probably need some sort of rabid neocon ultranationalist imperialist farther out there than the likes of Cheney, Wolfowitz (sp?) & Rumsfeld), then cue a massive shitstorm, particularly if supporting assets make a big mess (i.e. lots of collateral damage).

A third possibility involves the Cod War turning hot- have some hotheaded British destroyer or frigate captain interpret a bumping incident as a deliberate ramming attack by an Icelandic vessel or a boarding of a British fishing vessel as an act of piracy, to which the British captain responds by firing on the Icelanic vessel, and you could have a bit of a war until the US & the rest of NATO step in to restore sanity.

A fourth involves a dispute between Canada and Spain over who could fish where in the 1990s that led to several Spanish trawlers being seized, and hotheads on both sides talked about sending warships to enforce their claims- have a Canadian and Spanish warship get into a shooting incident over a fishing boat, and a war could start that way.

A fifth involves something I've seen on threads about Quebec secession- there's been some discussion about the French intervening in favor of Quebec in such a scenario, especially under DeGaulle. Now this is a stretch, but if the French do attempt such an intervention, neither Canada nor the US are likely to be very happy at that turn of events. It's even more of a stretch, but this could cause a war if say a US CVBG was sent to intercept the French and mak them turn back, the French refused, and things escalated into a shooting incident, or Canadian troops saw French personnel on Canadian soil as hostile invaders and reacting accordingly.

You could also have the US get really pissed off about the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty and decide to retaliate by bombing a number of Israeli air and naval bases.

There's also the possibility of Argentina having another go at the Falklands, although that should probably go into future history.

However, of all these, the only two that don't seem rather implausible without being preceded by massive butterflies to me are the last two, and really, the best ways to have first-world democracies going to war against each other tend to involve pre-WW2 PODs, such as something leading to any combination of the US/Britain/France going at it.

Perhaps if WW2 ended with no UN and no ongoing Soviet (or Nazi) threat resulting in a prolonged Cold War to force fundamental strategic interests of first world countries into alignment and into an alliance, these would be more plausible ways to start a war, as wars have started over stuff like that in the past.
 
The US invaded the British crown colony of Grenada in 1983, so thats one democracy attacking another.
 
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