Democracy and military success
As far as I understand, in ancient times, the Eastern despotisms dominated the world because they fought better than democratic city-states. Unfortunately, the one-man ruling is necessary for a war. At the same time, there is an opposite tendency: free countries support new ideas, including military innovations, better than unfree ones. The general weakness of Eastern-type civilization is that the science and technology developed more slowly there, than in Western-type civilizations.
As for military innovations and ideas, I can give three more examples:
1) The Swiss have historically lived very freely, and now the Switzerland is now the country with the highest level of democracy; and in the Middle Ages, the Swiss were a very powerful military force, usually defeating the knights. The secret of the Swiss's success was in the rational tactics of their "phalanx" (pikemen);
2) As I understand it, in the early Middle Ages, the Vikings had a military democracy, while in the late Middle Ages, a regular monarchy reigned in Scandinavia. Is it possible to draw a parallel here with the fact that in the early Middle Ages the Vikings could terrorize Europeans, but after 1064 they lost this advantage?
3) If I am not mistaken, the nomadic Mongols had a lot of what can be called democracy. On the other hand, Genghis Khan united them into a single centralized state, and achieved a huge military success. It seems to me that the following scenario can be natural in history: first, there is democracy in the country and this allows smart people to grow into the elite and implement innovations, and then a dictator appears who turns the whole country into a very effective military machine. In addition to the Mongols, another example was the Nazi Germany.
Please comment my thoughts above.
As for military innovations and ideas, I can give three more examples:
1) The Swiss have historically lived very freely, and now the Switzerland is now the country with the highest level of democracy; and in the Middle Ages, the Swiss were a very powerful military force, usually defeating the knights. The secret of the Swiss's success was in the rational tactics of their "phalanx" (pikemen);
2) As I understand it, in the early Middle Ages, the Vikings had a military democracy, while in the late Middle Ages, a regular monarchy reigned in Scandinavia. Is it possible to draw a parallel here with the fact that in the early Middle Ages the Vikings could terrorize Europeans, but after 1064 they lost this advantage?
3) If I am not mistaken, the nomadic Mongols had a lot of what can be called democracy. On the other hand, Genghis Khan united them into a single centralized state, and achieved a huge military success. It seems to me that the following scenario can be natural in history: first, there is democracy in the country and this allows smart people to grow into the elite and implement innovations, and then a dictator appears who turns the whole country into a very effective military machine. In addition to the Mongols, another example was the Nazi Germany.
Please comment my thoughts above.
Comments (14)
I don't think that's a true for most of history, honestly. "The West" being the leading force of innovation seems very particular to the Age of Enlightenment (and Renaissance, to a somewhat lesser degree), much of which was triggered by an influx of (Middle-)Eastern scholars fleeing invading nomadic conquerors.
Before that, the Islamic world had a golden age, but China especially had been a center of innovation for centuries, since before the birth of Christ.
China's centralized imperial structure would directly contradict your thesis.
Quoting Linkey
The Fall of Western Roman Empire in 476 ushered in the 'Dark Ages' for Europe, at which point it's entire centralized power structure was overturned by invading barbarians. This was an earth-shattering catastrophe for the people living there at the time, and it made Europe vulnerable to threats from all sides including the Vikings.
It took Europe centuries to recover, which is why they're commonly referred to as the Dark Ages.
In other words, the fact that their civilization collapsed probably had more to do with it than the form of their government.
What about the Greeks? They were the inventors of science...
Quoting Linkey
Which brings to mind: Ancient Athens was an exceedingly functional democracy (among male citizens) with excellent military prowess all in one bang. So this would directly speak against a non-democratic governance being necessary for war.
While I'm not claiming it's easy to obtain and sustain, it is nevertheless quite possible.
If you were to point to Greece, I could point to Egypt, Persia, India or China as contemporary counter-examples to Greece being exceptional.
Please read the op and see that I have written the same.
The democratic city-states fought well, but the were just too small in comparison with the huge Persian Empire. This is explained that before inventing the printing press, only small territories could have a democratic government. And again, this is the same thing as the on I mentioned in the op.
I missed that in the OP.
My main point in addressing Ancient Athens was that a democracy can engage in war just fine. Athens as democracy did great in battles until the Peloponnesian war - in which Athens became largely outnumbered due to the Persian empire assisting Sparta against Athens. But this is a case of sheer numbers rather than ability to engage in war effectively, to my best understanding at least.
Maybe more importantly: Are you suggesting that dictatorships are necessarily more stable than democracies when it comes to large populaces?
Of course this was in the past, before the printing press. Do you know any democratic state in ancient history, larger than one city?
I hear these words from Russian anti-democrats, Putinists, Z-activists when I argue with them (trying to convince them to stop voting for Putin).
Ideal democracy is when any decision is choosen via a referendum. Currently the highest level of democracy (but still small) is in Switzerland.
Ancient democratic cities included Athens, Argos, Corcyra, Chios, Rhodes, Syracuse, Croton, Thurii, Ephesus, and Miletus. Athens imposed democracy on cities within the Delian League - Erythrae and Clazomenae, we know of. Others remained under the command of episkopoi.
This of course caused some resentment, and opposition to enforced democracy. A familiar path.
I think that even Machiavelli said that city-states raise better armies than monarchs that use soldiers of fortune, the Condottieri.
Simply put it, will to fight and the ability to take the initiative by lower ranking officers, ncos or even soldiers has always been extremely important. Armies of totalitarian societies usually have difficulties to operate once the commanders are out of action or missing. This actually can be seen from just how many Russian generals were killed in the early stages of the war in Ukraine in 2022. Yet Imperial Germany and Nazi Germany did have their Aufstragtaktik, so this can be taught also in non-democracies. Yet in functioning democracies this elan for the troops can be easily created. In dictatorships, showing initiative is crushed and emphasis is usually to follow orders (assuming one doesn't have a warfighting culture that avoids these pitfalls). You are correct that these kind of issue are important, starting from the obvious fact that armed forces are part of a society and hence do have inside them the possible problems that the society has (corruption, lack of social cohesion, people subjugated only by fear of violence etc.).
Again the war in Ukraine has shown that these issues do matter.
Quoting Linkey
Actually, no.
Sweden was quite bellicose especially in the 17th Century and fought quite well above it's weight limit in the 30-years war and against the Danes, the Poles and the Russians. In fact the Swedish King Gustavus Adolphus is sometimes called "the father of Modern warfare". In the end, the country simply lacked sufficient manpower. So much actually, that once when a census was made, the state was horrified to learn just how few people it had, it declared the findings a state secret.
And anyway, feodalism wasn't so crushing in Sweden (and the Nordic countries) as it was in Central Europe. In Sweden the peasant class was quite strong and the aristocracy wasn't so powerful as in many other countries. Hence the last revolt in Sweden was when they rebelled against their Danish King (of Kalmar Union time) 1521-1523. After that, there has been no rebellion or civil war in Sweden until this day, which just shows how actually proto-democratic the society has been.
And the successes of the Vikings tell more about the weakness of Europe in the Dark Ages. Charlemagne had forbidden aristocrats to build fortifications, but once those castles and forts were built up, no Viking problem. Or by the Vikings had already settled into the picture (as Normans).
Quoting Linkey
I'm not so sure just how much democracy did the Mongol Horde have. True that after the Khan died, the Mongol invasion machine broke down as to elect a new Khan (something which actually spared Western Europe). Anyway, with horsemen that took literally as warfighting strategy the Roman saying "make a desert and call it peace" I find really little to be similar with democracy or democratic values.