The manner in which U.S. national security strategy adapts democratic peace theory rests on two assumptions.  The first is the belief that democracy is welcome across the globe and can therefore be easily exported.  This faith in the ready desirability of democracy, however, is unfounded.  Global variables, such as divergent cultural values, ethno-nationalist passions, and economic imperatives, while they cannot be said to invalidate this notion, can act to inhibit the spread of democracy and, even where it is embraced, serve to create a variety of systems under the umbrella label of "democracy."  The worth ascribed to democracy is of paramount importance.  While it may be universally possible, the manner in which democracy is assessed and valued is not necessarily uniform.  Therefore, a democratic crusade ensconced in a cloud of rhetoric has the potential to entangle the United States in costly and counterproductive foreign interventions.

    The second assumption of U.S. security strategy is that the global spread of democracy - and with it the democratic peace - is sufficient to ensure this nation's security.  This is also a fallacy.  Democracies, like all states, pursue objectives that they believe to be in their interests in an attempt to compete and ensure their self-preservation in the international realm.  In doing so they engage in many activities, to include covert action, espionage, and economic espionage, that may impinge on the sovereignty and threaten the security of other states, including fellow democracies.  And, while these acts hardly produce the havoc and destruction  that accompany  war, they are nonetheless capable of threatening the relative well-being of another state.  That democracies frequently indulge in these less-than-benign acts against other democracies serves to demonstrate that the promise of a democratic peace is hollow:  the "peace" that is proffered is not without perils, and indeed it can often be exceptionally menacing.

    Thus, contrary to the President's assurances, democracy is neither a universally desirable commodity nor the key to an inherently peaceful and secure world.  This mismatch between U.S.  national security strategy and the challenges and menaces that will continue to lurk in the international realm has clear consequences for the tools of national security strategy - that is, U.S. foreign policy, national military strategy, and the efforts of America's intelligence community.  To realize national security, each of these implements must be employed in a coordinated and cogent manner.   Currently, they are engaged in a vain pursuit of "democracy" that garners little in exchange for the time, energy, and resources expended.  This misguided quest, in an era of decreasing budgets, has potentially grave implications, particularly with regard to the military's capability to respond to actual threats to U.S. security.  U.S. national security strategy can accommodate idealism, but in the end it must be grounded in self-interest.  Otherwise, it courts peril.