How democracies lose small wars : state, society, and the failures of France in Algeria, Israel in Lebanon, and the United States in Vietnam / Gil Merom.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Merom, Gil, 1956-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Low-intensity conflicts (Military science)--France.

Low-intensity conflicts (Military science).

Military doctrine.

France.

Low-intensity conflicts (Military science)--United States.

United States.

Low-intensity conflicts (Military science)--Israel.

Israel.

Military doctrine--France.

Military doctrine--United States.

Military doctrine--Israel.

Counterinsurgency.

Physical Description:

xiii, 295 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Cambridge, UK ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 2003.

Summary:

In How Democracies Lose Small Wars, Gil Merom argues that modern democracies fail in wars of insurgency because they are unable to find a winning balance between expedient and moral tolerance of the costs of war. Small wars, he argues, are lost at home when a critical minority shifts the center of gravity from the battlefield to the marketplace of ideas. This minority, from among the educated middle class, abhors the brutality involved in effective counterinsurgency, but also refuses to sustain the level of casualties that successfully combatting counterinsurgency requires. Government and state institutions further contribute to failure, as they resort to despotic patterns of behavior in a bid to overcome their domestic predicament. Merom proceeds by analyzing the role of brutality in counterinsurgency, the historical foundations of moral and expedient opposition to war, and the actions states traditionally took in order to preserve foreign policy autonomy. He then discusses the elements of the process that led to the failure of France in Algeria and Israel in Lebanon. In the Conclusion, Merom considers the Vietnam War and the influence that failed small wars has had on Western war-making and military intervention.

Contents:

Introduction

Military superiority and victory in small wars: historical observations

The structural origins of defiance: the middle-class, the marketplace of ideas, and the normative gap

The structural origins of tenacity: national alignment and compartmentalization

The French war in Algeria: a strategic, political, and economic overview

French instrumental dependence and its consequences

The development of a normative difference in France, and its consequences

The French struggle to contain the growth of the normative gap and the rise of the "Democratic Agenda"

Political relevance and its consequences in France

The Israeli War in Lebanon: a strategic, political, and economic overview

Israeli instrumental dependence and its consequences

The development of a normative difference in Israel, and its consequences

The Israeli struggle to contain the growth of the normative gap and the rise of the "democratic agenda"

Political relevance and its consequences in Israel

Conclusion.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 261-276) and index.

ISBN:

0521804035

0521008778

OCLC:

51274584

Online:

Publisher description