How democracies lose small wars : state, society, and the failures of France in Algeria, Israel in Lebanon, and the United States in Vietnam
Merom, Gil, 1956-2003
Books, Manuscripts
"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."--Jacket.
Main title:
Author:
Imprint:
Cambridge, UK ; New York : Cambridge University Press, c2003.
Collation:
xiii, 295 p. ; 24 cm.
Notes:
Includes bibliographical references (p. 261-276) and index.
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.
ISBN:
9780521008778
LC class:
U241 MER
Language:
English
Subject:
BRN:
4302