IT IS HARD to think of many democracies that were not born in some manner out of war, violence, or coercion-beginning with the first example of Cleisthenic Athens in 507 B.C., and including our own revolution in 1776. The best examples are those of the twentieth century, when many of the most successful present-day constitutional governments were epiphenomena of war, imposed by the victors or coalition partners, as we have seen in the cases of Germany, Japan, Italy, South Korea, and more recently Grenada, Liberia, Panama, Serbia-and Afghanistan and Iraq.
( Victor Davis Hanson )
[ The Father of Us All: War and ]
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