Striving for Victory on the Cheap: Imposing Democracy in the Absence of Total War

Abstract

Can the United States successfully impose democracy by force without resorting to the same level of total warfare it waged on Germany and Japan in the Second World War? The hypothesis for this research is that the U.S. can successfully force democracy on an undemocratic state without resorting to total war, but it can only do so through a comprehensive plan that includes the coordinated and integrated application of all instruments of national power and influence. This is an important question for operational and strategic planners and policy makers, because the United States has embarked on a series of actions since the Second World War to impose democracy by force, but has been reluctant to wage total war in order to achieve that goal. The evaluation criteria for this research are drawn from two main sources. The first source is Dr. Eva Bellin's article in Political Science Quarterly (Volume 119, Number 4, 2004-2005) titled "The Iraqi Intervention and Democracy in Comparative historical Perspective." In that article, she posits seven factors that significantly contributed to the success the U.S. experienced with Japan and Germany: Economic development, ethnic homogeneity, effective state institutions, prior experience with meaningful democracy, leaders of national stature capable of sponsoring the democratic process, the psychology of utter defeat as a result of total war, and the level of commitment by the U.S. in terms of money, manpower and diplomacy. The second source for the evaluation criteria is the Center for Strategic and International Studies'(CSIS) Winning The Peace: An American Strategy for Post conflict Reconstruction, edited by Robert C. Orr, in which Orr posits four "pillars" for successful post conflict reconstruction: security, governance and participation, social and economic well-being, justice and reconciliation.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
May 24, 2007
Accession Number
ADA479309

Entities

People

  • Hank Arnold

Organizations

  • United States Army Command and General Staff College

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Energy and Power Technologies
  • Engineered Resilient Systems

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Civil War
  • Department Of Defense
  • Governments
  • Intergovernmental Organizations
  • International Organizations
  • Iraqi-War
  • Military Science
  • National Governments
  • National Politics
  • National Security
  • Personnel Management
  • Political Science
  • Political Systems
  • Psychology
  • Second World War
  • War Colleges
  • Warfare

Fields of Study

  • Sociology

Readers

  • Military History of the United States in the 20th Century.
  • Military and Counterinsurgency Studies.
  • Strategic Security Studies