Book Review of How Democracies Lose Small Wars by Gil Meron. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2003
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Authors
Wirtz, James J.
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Date of Issue
2003
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Project Muse
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Abstract
The title of Gil Merom’s theoretical foray into the small-wars literature is only slightly
misleading. His purpose is to explain why militarily powerful democracies fail to
achieve their objectives against weaker opponents, despite the success they enjoy on
the battleªeld. Merom suggests that democracies fail to enforce their will against
weaker adversaries because a gap emerges between state policy and public sentiment
toward the war effort, a gap that widens into a chasm of domestic unrest when governments
attempt to cover up the material, human, and moral costs of war. He suggests
that this unease about the war effort is often concentrated in key segments of society—
among the media, intellectuals, and the urban middle class, or even within the
military itself. To illustrate his theory, Merom explores the French effort to suppress
the Algerian Front for National Liberation, the Israeli punitive expedition into Lebanon
in the 1980s, and the U.S. experience in Vietnam.
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Article
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National Security Affairs
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This publication is a work of the U.S. Government as defined in Title 17, United States Code, Section 101. Copyright protection is not available for this work in the United States.