The appeal of Wilsonianism/ The Bush Doctrine

President Wilson is famously quoted "The world must be made safe for democracy." Let us presume that being of a a democratic form of government is true. Second let us hold that this form of government is not only the most moral, but also gives us as a people the moral duty to enlighten the rest of the world. Thirdly and lastly let us hold that all healthy human beings are essentially rational. Being the most moral, any non-democratic style of government is a threat not only to us, but to the entire world. The fact that another government has not democratic processes means that it may in fact disagree with us on other issues and may result to the use of force to get its way.

Here comes the Bush Doctrine

THEREFORE we must act to make sure that our democracy and thus all democracies (since we are friends with democracies) are safe from this threat. So we will be morally justified in using military force against a nation that does not (yet) threaten force upon us. We can only assure our safety by using pre-emptive force against a non-democratic state. The citizens of said nation obviously desire to live in a democracy even if they do not know it yet for it is the natural yearning of the human spirit. No rational human being could deny this, especially in connection with what we feel are unalienable human rights. We know what is best for them.

*correlary* Supposedly democracies do not fight one another