In its mythological and geographical meanings the word ‘Europe’ had already been known in the ancient world. The word ‘Europeans’ however, was first used only in the VIII century by bishop Isidorus Pacensis, the chronicler of that period. Describing the victory of Franks under Mayor of the Palace Charles Martel over Saracen troops at the Battle of Poitiers, he called the king and his warriors Europeans (europeenses). More than a thousand years later Sir Winston Churchill would say that it had determined the destiny of Europe, having pointed out that had it not been for this victory, Oxford students would study the Quran.

Starting from the Peloponnesian Union and for already more than twenty-five centuries the human race has been enthusiastically playing the same murderous game of keeping friends with one neighbour against another. While goals, scale, ideology and means keep changing, the cornerstone of it is – and has always been – the strengthening of both the defence and the attack. This is not to say that it is good. This is not to say that it is bad. It just works. And this is exactly our civilisation’s model of living. Every new century brings its new changes to this model, but they look like a facelift rather than a gut rehab.

The era of wars is coming to an end. Peace oriented countries emerge. It seems that history repeats itself time and again. However, the fundamental novelty of today is that peace orientation is taken by the world leaders. In the past, countries successful in an all-round development were mostly belligerent, as opposed to less successful states whose aspiration for peace was no more than a mere attempt to preserve independence. Today the roles are changing places. Today those standing for peace are not the pacifist idealists with illusive peacemaking objectives, but rather rationalists who use peaceful means to achieve long range goals and stable development.

It is assumed that the modern world lives in the most advanced of the centuries: science makes such a tremendous progress that has never yet been made, and humans have never yet been so close to unravelling the mystery of the origin of life on Earth and getting everlasting life. The descriptive epithets for this century are ‘the most grandiose’, ‘the most significant’, ‘the most perfect and rationale’… Humanity opts for the better. These ‘better’ trends include extension of democracy or democratic values, to be more precise, and attempts to plant these values even on ‘sand’ on which, as we know, democracies are not to be built. Is democracy as safe as is commonly perceived, especially in the Western world? Does it carry a threat in terms of international relations in particular, when countries and entire continents get involved in the same global processes?

The political regime that practically all of us are familiar with today is ‘democracy’. It is the system of government, in which the only legitimate source of power is the people, who rule either directly or through freely elected representatives. This notwithstanding, the majority of people do not have a clear understanding of this assertion and do not put it to good use, including some policy makers and dictators who try to gain support from the people forming a single-party regime of power in a democratic society.