3 ms·
> lost wars are an enormous stress test for authoritarian regimes where the ruler gets all the blame, just look at the collapse of Tsarist Russia in 1917 This
by api 5y ago
> lost wars are an enormous stress test for authoritarian regimes where the ruler gets all the blame, just look at the collapse of Tsarist Russia in 1917
This just brought to mind the idea that it's remarkable that America has weathered at least one and possibly three (depending on the definition of success) lost wars in the past 50 years without severe political consequences: Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. It wasn't without consequence but it did not cause anything like Russia in 1917 or Germany in the 1930s. The worst we got was a shirtless jackass wearing horns on the Senate podium.
- inglor_cz 5y agoThe reason is probably because the average American didn't go hungry because of the loss. Also, Americans are, for all their diversity, fairly mixed and culturally similar. OTOH, if you commit a behemoth like Austria-Hungary where 40 per cent of the country belongs to disadvantaged minority ethnicities and then you lose the war and the population is reduced to digging roots from the ground and making soups out of leather boots (I am not exaggerating), there isn't any reason to continue the existence of such a structure left. Only fear that the uprising may get you killed, but if the soldiers are demoralized too, they won't shoot.
- pjerem 5y agoI don’t think we can count US as an "authoritarian regime".
- inglor_cz 5y agoEven democratic states tend to reel after lost wars. Perhaps not collapse entirely, but a period of unrest is very possible.
- pjerem 5y agoJust out of curiosity, are there a fair number of democratic countries (outside of the US) deciding to go to war and then lose it ? On the contrary it looks like democracies have a hard time even deciding to defend themselves, because people will never decide risk a war on their country. And Putin is exploiting just this, IMO.
- inglor_cz 5y agoIn the last decades, no. If they enter a war, it is usually because it is forced upon them by an external power. But many important Western European countries were at least flawed democracies since approximately the last quarter of the 19th century. For example, Italy was a democracy when it launched an abortive attempt to conquer Ethiopia in 1896.
- mellavora 5y agoAdvantage of a democracy (nitpick: nominally democratic republic) is that it offers a bloodless way to replace the government.
- kevin_thibedeau 5y agoThe American public believes that Saddam had WMD and was collaborating with bin Laden. In that bubble two of those wars were a success.
- nemo44x 5y agoOwning the reserve currency of the world matters.
- api 5y agoThe US controls Dogecoin?
- myko 5y agoA big part of this is due to them not being military losses. In each engagement the American military closed with and destroyed the enemy repeatedly. The nation building part failed in Vietnam and Afghanistan. Iraq did a bit better in that respect, but it isn't a new Japan.