John Atkinson schrieb:
> One might even (if we drag the topic back to GZG for a moment) suggest
It took me some time to realize who you meant by 'Nicky II' - Zar
NIcholaus II, I guess?
Imterestingly for the argument about the effect of electoral politics on
wars, the Russian participation WWI didn't last exactly 'forever'. 2 1/2
years until the Zar fell, 3 years until the Bolshevik revolution. All the
participating democracies lasted longer.
Also, colonial wars led by democracies are not neccessarily short. Some wars
lost by the outside power that lasted longer than the Russians in WWI:
Dutch / Indonesia. Early 1946 - 1949
French Indochina. 1945 - 1954
Algeria 1954 - 1962
US troops in Vietnam 1965 - 1973
Not a lost colonial war, but a long-drawn out fight:
The US Philippine war lasted ofiicially from 1901 until 1902 when the US
declared victory, but fighting against scattered opponents lasted until 1913
Maybe the main difference between a war led by a democracy and a dictatorship
is that the debate about how to lead the war is in the open
rather than behind closed doors?
Greetings Karl Heinz
> On 7/28/08, K.H.Ranitzsch <kh.ranitzsch@t-online.de> wrote:
> It took me some time to realize who you meant by 'Nicky II' - Zar
AKA the Tsar-Martyr, among other things.
> Imterestingly for the argument about the effect of electoral politics
Yes--but the Russians had already fought one nasty high-cost war to an
embarassing conclusion less than nine years prior. The Russian Army and people
eventually got tired of sacrificing for little appreciable gain.
As for the democracies, all of them managed to whip up their populations with
nationalist drivel, and by 1916 the French had burnt
themselves out--you don't see any effective offensives out of them
after that time. However, this sort of rhetoric is only of use in a
Napoleonic-style national total war--which we know the great powers of
the GZGverse DON'T fight because they'd be nuking each other's colonies and
there would be heavy fighting in the inner systems. You'd can't mobilize mass
armies driven by crusading vigor (whether you use Democratic, Nationalist,
Fascist, or Communist propaganda is irrelevant to the discussion per se) and
then NOT use them to crush the enemy once and for all. That's the game all the
powers were playing in WWI and WWII, and it's nearly useless for limited wars
of colonialism.
> Also, colonial wars led by democracies are not neccessarily short.
Some
> wars lost by the outside power that lasted longer than the Russians in
True--although that supports my premise that using mass draftee armies
fired by patriotic enthusiasm is not ideal for prolonged wars. I was just
having a harder time coming up with a good example of an autocratic government
failing as spectacularly at sustaining it's population's morale.
> Maybe the main difference between a war led by a democracy and a
That, and democracies tend to simply vote the government out and sue for peace
in one way or another, while autocracies are far more likely to do something
spectacularly messy. Like hold a civil war, then starve the Ukraine.