How Democracies Lose Small Wars: State, Society, and the Failures of France in Algeria, Israel in Lebanon, and the United States in VietnamCambridge University Press, 4 août 2003 - 295 pages Gil Merom argues that modern democracies fail in insurgency wars because they are unable to find a winning balance between expedient and moral tolerance for the costs of war. Small wars are lost at home when a critical minority shifts the balancing element from the battlefield to the marketplace of ideas. This minority, representing the educated middle class, abhors the brutality involved in effective counterinsurgency, but also refuses to sustain the level of casualties resulting from fighting in other ways. |
Table des matières
Introduction | 1 |
International Relations Theory and Small Wars | 3 |
How Do Democracies Fail in Small Wars? | 12 |
The Role of Realist Motivational and Other Factors Reconsidered | 22 |
Research Design and Methodological Considerations | 24 |
Plan of the Book | 28 |
Military Superiority and Victory in Small Wars Historical Observations | 31 |
Brutality as a Means of Cost Management | 40 |
The Domestic Reaction of the Government and the State | 120 |
The Secondary Expansion of the Normative Gap | 128 |
Political Relevance and Its Consequences in France | 134 |
The Intellectuals and the Press | 136 |
The Consequences of Political Relevance | 143 |
PART III | 151 |
The Israeli War in Lebanon A Strategic Political and Economic Overview | 151 |
The Israeli Economy and the Lebanon War | 160 |
Conclusion | 44 |
The Structural Origins of Defiance The MiddleClass the Marketplace of Ideas and the Normative Gap | 46 |
Foundations of a Normative Gap | 54 |
The Domestic Dimension of Brutalization | 58 |
Conclusion | 61 |
The Structural Origins of Tenacity National Alignment and Compartmentalization | 63 |
Institutional Incongruity and Strategic Preferences | 64 |
Popular Alignment | 65 |
Institutional Responses to Threats against the Normative Alignment | 69 |
A Question of Timing | 73 |
Conclusion | 76 |
PART II | 79 |
The French War in Algeria A Strategic Political and Economic Overview | 81 |
The French Political System the State the Army and the War | 86 |
The French Economy and the Algerian War | 93 |
Conclusion | 96 |
French Instrumental Dependence and Its Consequences | 97 |
The Development of a Normative Difference in France and Its Consequences | 106 |
The Debate about the Morality of the Conduct of the Military in Algeria | 108 |
The Debate about the Identity of the State | 117 |
The French Struggle to Contain the Growth of the Normative Gap and the Rise of the Democratic Agenda | 119 |
Conclusion | 164 |
Israeli Instrumental Dependence and Its Consequences | 165 |
The Development of a Normative Difference in Israel and Its Consequences | 173 |
The Debate about the Morality of the Military Conduct in Lebanon | 180 |
The Debate about the Identity of the State | 187 |
The Israeli Struggle to Contain the Growth of the Normative Gap and the Rise of the Democratic Agenda | 190 |
The Domestic Reaction of the Government and the State | 193 |
The Secondary Expansion of the Normative Gap | 197 |
Political Relevance and Its Consequences in Israel | 204 |
The Conformist SoftLeft and the Press | 209 |
The Consequences of Political Relevance | 216 |
PART IV | 223 |
Conclusion | 225 |
Domestic and International Causality Reconsidered | 227 |
The Role of Instrumental Dependence in a Comparative Perspective | 234 |
Democracy and the Use of Force | 239 |
Concluding Remarks | 245 |
Postscript | 247 |
Bibliography | 257 |
273 | |
Autres éditions - Tout afficher
How Democracies Lose Small Wars: State, Society, and the Failures of France ... Gil Merom Aucun aperçu disponible - 2003 |
How Democracies Lose Small Wars: State, Society, and the Failures of France ... Gil Merom Aucun aperçu disponible - 2003 |
Expressions et termes fréquents
agenda Algerian war Algiers American anti-war argument army army's battle Battle of Algiers battlefield became Beirut brutality campaign camps casualties command conduct in Algeria conflict conscripts consequences cost counterinsurgency criticism defense democracies democratic demonstration developments discussion domestic economic etatist example expedient fact fight forces Foreign Français France French Algeria Gaulle guerre d'Algérie guerrilla Ha'aretz Hamon and Rotman Ibid Indochina instrumental dependence insurgents intellectuals intervention Israel Israeli Jean-Marie Domenach journalists leaders leadership Lebanon liberal Likud Maariv marketplace of ideas massacre Massu middle-class Milhemet military conduct Minister mobilization Mollet moral motivation normative difference normative gap officers operation outcomes Palestinian particularly Peace percent pieds-noirs political relevance population porteurs protest Quoted reservists Schiff and Yaari small wars social society soldiers strategy Témoignage Témoignage Chrétien tion torture underdogs University Press Vidal-Naquet Vietnam Vietnam War violence Yediot Yediot Aharonot