Democracies and Small Wars (Paperback, annotated edition)

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, and particularly so regarding the management of small wars. The relatively slower decision-making processes reduces the amount of flexibility required for waging small wars. Democratic political processes, including engaging in war, also require a certain amount of transparency, which is invariably at the expense of the military operational needs for secrecy. Unquestionably, democracies pay a certain price in combat effectiveness for maintaining their values. This collection brings together a number of case studies showing how democracies have won small wars.