Can democracies conduct successful foreign policies? Are they at a disadvantage in conflicts against dictatorships? Are authoritarian states better at fighting wars? Presented in this volume are seminal contributions to the debate over democracy and military victory. It presents the theoretical, conceptual, and empirical arguments for why democracies often win wars, as well as important critiques of the "democratic victory" proposition.

Why do democracies win wars? This is a critical question in the study of international relations, as a traditional view--expressed most famously by Alexis de Tocqueville--has been that democracies are inferior in crafting foreign policy and fighting wars. In Democracies at War, the first major study of its kind, Dan Reiter and Allan Stam come to a very different conclusion. Democracies tend to win the wars they fight--specifically, about eighty percent of the time. Complementing their wide-ranging case-study analysis, the authors apply innovative statistical tests and new hypotheses. In unusually clear prose, they pinpoint two reasons for democracies' success at war. First, as elected leaders understand that losing a war can spell domestic political backlash, democracies start only those wars they are likely to win. Secondly, the emphasis on individuality within democratic societies means that their soldiers fight with greater initiative and superior leadership. Surprisingly, Reiter and Stam find that it is neither economic muscle nor bandwagoning between democratic powers that enables democracies to win wars. They also show that, given societal consent, democracies are willing to initiate wars of empire or genocide. On the whole, they find, democracies' dependence on public consent makes for more, rather than less, effective foreign policy. Taking a fresh approach to a question that has long merited such a study, this book yields crucial insights on security policy, the causes of war, and the interplay between domestic politics and international relations.

By their nature, democracies clearly have greater constraints than autocratic regimes on their freedom of action as they have to meet constitutional, legal and moral criteria in their use of force. This collection analyses a number of case studies showing how democracies have won small wars.

1. Introduction 2. Military superiority and victory in small wars: historical observations 3. The structural original of defiance: the middle-class, the marketplace of ideas, and the normative gap 4. The structural origins of tenacity: national alignment and compartmentalization 5. The French war in Algeria: a strategic, political, and economic overview 6. French instrumental dependence and its consequences 7. The development of a normative difference in France and its consequences 8. The French struggle to contain the growth of the normative gap and the rise of the 'democratic agenda' 9. Political relevance and its consequences in France 10. The Israeli war in Lebanon: a strategic, political, and economic overview 11. Israeli instrumental dependence and its consequences 12. The development of a normative difference in Israel and its consequences 13. The Israeli struggle to contain the growth of the normative gap and the rise of the 'democratic agenda' 14. Political relevance and its consequences in Israel.

Explores the domestic factors that determine the outcomes of wars

This lively survey of the history of conflict between democracies reveals a remarkable--and tremendously important--finding: fully democratic nations have never made war on other democracies. Furthermore, historian Spencer R. Weart concludes in this thought-provoking book, they probably never will. Building his argument on some forty case studies ranging through history from ancient Athens to Renaissance Italy to modern America, the author analyzes for the first time every instance in which democracies or regimes like democracies have confronted each other with military force. Weart establishes a consistent set of definitions of democracy and other key terms, then draws on an array of international sources to demonstrate the absence of war among states of a particular democratic type. His survey also reveals the new and unexpected finding of a still broader zone of peace among oligarchic republics, even though there are more of such minority-controlled governments than democracies in history. In addition, Weart discovers that peaceful leagues and confederations--the converse of war--endure only when member states are democracies or oligarchies. With the help of related findings in political science, anthropology, and social psychology, the author explores how the political culture of democratic leaders prevents them from warring against others who are recognized as fellow democrats and how certain beliefs and behaviors lead to peace or war. Weart identifies danger points for democracies, and he offers crucial, practical information to help safeguard peace in the future.

Success in war has always been difficult to measure. What is judged successful by military leaders may not be judged so by political leadership, nor by the wider public, at least in a Western-style democracy. The public is generally inclined to applaud military victory, but it instinctively reserves the right to ask afterwards: Was it really worth it? In Political Victory, Brian Crozier looks at modern wars involving democracies to evaluate victory and defeat by the success or failure of political outcomes.Crozier begins with the two world wars, where in both cases the German aggressor was defeated by three key democracies: the United States, the United Kingdom, and France. In World War I military victory was squandered by treaty terms that led to the advent of Hitler and Nazism. By contrast, the total defeat of Nazism in 1945 left the Western Allies in charge of some two-thirds of Germany's population, thus enabling the victors to convert the vanquished to democracy. Crozier also deals with the break up of empires following World War II, comparing how Britain avoided full-scale war in contrast with France's violent confrontations in Southeast Asia and Algeria.America's involvement in Vietnam is analyzed in the wider context of the Cold War and the mounting challenge of international communism to Western democracies. His assessment stresses the lack of popularity in America for the idea of democratizing a region to which the U.S. has no historical or sentimental attachment. Among the smaller conflicts considered in this volume are the Suez crisis of 1956, the Falkland Island war between Britain and Argentina, and the fateful Soviet involvement in Afghanistan that helped bring about the collapse of the Soviet system. Crozier concludes with analyses of the 1991 Gulf War and the Western intervention in the former Yugoslavia.Crozier's final chapters focus on looming threats around the world with particular emphasis on international terrorism and the challenge of radical Islam. Both historical and timely, Political Victory will be of interest to military historians, political scientists, and foreign affairs specialists.

1. Introduction 2. Military superiority and victory in small wars: historical observations 3. The structural original of defiance: the middle-class, the marketplace of ideas, and the normative gap 4. The structural origins of tenacity: national alignment and compartmentalization 5. The French war in Algeria: a strategic, political, and economic overview 6. French instrumental dependence and its consequences 7. The development of a normative difference in France and its consequences 8. The French struggle to contain the growth of the normative gap and the rise of the 'democratic agenda' 9. Political relevance and its consequences in France 10. The Israeli war in Lebanon: a strategic, political, and economic overview 11. Israeli instrumental dependence and its consequences 12. The development of a normative difference in Israel and its consequences 13. The Israeli struggle to contain the growth of the normative gap and the rise of the 'democratic agenda' 14. Political relevance and its consequences in Israel.

In war, do mass and materiel matter most? Will states with the largest, best equipped, information-technology-rich militaries invariably win? The prevailing answer today among both scholars and policymakers is yes. But this is to overlook force employment, or the doctrine and tactics by which materiel is actually used. In a landmark reconception of battle and war, this book provides a systematic account of how force employment interacts with materiel to produce real combat outcomes. Stephen Biddle argues that force employment is central to modern war, becoming increasingly important since 1900 as the key to surviving ever more lethal weaponry. Technological change produces opposite effects depending on how forces are employed; to focus only on materiel is thus to risk major error--with serious consequences for both policy and scholarship. In clear, fluent prose, Biddle provides a systematic account of force employment's role and shows how this account holds up under rigorous, multimethod testing. The results challenge a wide variety of standard views, from current expectations for a revolution in military affairs to mainstream scholarship in international relations and orthodox interpretations of modern military history. Military Power will have a resounding impact on both scholarship in the field and on policy debates over the future of warfare, the size of the military, and the makeup of the defense budget.

An overview of offense-defense theory, which argues that the relative ease of offense and defense varies in international politics. Offense-defense theory argues that the relative ease of offense and defense varies in international politics. When the offense has the advantage, military conquest becomes easier and war is more likely; the opposite is true when the defense has the advantage. The balance between offense and defense depends on geography, technology, and other factors. This theory, and the body of related theories, has generated much debate and research over the past twenty-five years.This book presents a comprehensive overview of offense-defense theory. It includes contending views on the theory and some of the most recent attempts to refine and test it.