other allies intervened in the Syrian civil war in support of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) which was founded in 2015. The SDF is an alliance of Syria and Kurdish militias committed to the development of a secular, democratic state in North Syria. Western intervention was composed of ammunition supplies, air raids, ground offensives and military personnel against Islamist anti-democratic forces such as Al Nusra and ISIL. Legal grounds Chapter VII of the UN Charter allows the Security Council to militarily intervene if there is a 'threat to the peace, breach of the peace or act of aggression.' It does not explicitly provide an avenue for intervention on the grounds of democratization. Article 2(4) outlaws the use of force and provides no suggestion nor does it imply that there may be motives underpinning military aggression that may nullify the article. The article stipulates that force that undermines and opposes the political independence of a state is illegal. This domain of illegality is broader than cross-border military action and outlaws both the use of force and the threat of its use for any political means, including democratization. Ian Hurd, Associate Professor at the Northwestern University Department of Political science affirms that a strict legal interpretation of international law prohibits any legal ground for democratic intervention undertaken by states. Cases for legality suggests that the ban on any form of military intervention in Article 2(4) has lost legal force after repeated violations by states. Thomas Franck, in 1970, suggests that the twenty-five-year history post UN Charter, which has seen various uses of force violating international law, signals that the illegality of intervention into states has eroded beyond recognition. This argument was reinforced by Michael Glennon who conceded that the general banning of the use force has collapsed. Frank references the general notion in international legal scholarship that rules lose their force if they are frequently violated, demonstrating that democratic intervention could be legally acceptable on that basis. Causes The Bueno de Mesquita model suggests that given governments are concerned with their own domestic actors who can depose them, states that engage in democratic intervention do so to maximize their political survival. The model demonstrates that states will pursue democratic intervention if it will be perceived by electorates to further national interests or benefit a gago portion of the world population. George Downs, political scientist at New York University provides an example of