Failure Mechanisms in Democratic Regimes – An Army's Role

Johnathan Wainright admonished soldiers demobilizing from the second World War:

“You have seen, in the lands where you worked and fought and where many of your comrades died, what happens when the people of a nation lose interest in their government. You have seen what happens when they follow false leaders. You have seen what happens when a nation accepts hate and intolerance.

We are all determined that what happened in Europe and in Asia must not happen to our country…If you see intolerance and hate, speak out against them. Make your individual voices heard, not for selfish things, but for honor and decency among men, for the rights of all people.”

> in the present moment we now call anything we favor “democratic” and anything we oppose “un-democratic.”

I think the author, like many today who try to disparage democracy, gets too caught up in the founders as scripture and old word usages.

The modern usage of democracy is at least a century old, per the article itself - hardly the 'present moment'.

Democracy is superior not because some founders wrote some scripture, but because of its moral and rational foundation, that all are created equal, all have universal, inalienable rights that include liberty, and thus nobody else has the right to tell them what to do without their consent. Thus only the people can legitimize a government, and governments exist to protect the people's rights.

And yes, oppression of the minority is a danger, but the solution isn't to have some self-selected people take power from the democracy and call themselves a 'republic' (and what stops those people from oppression, corruption, etc. Why would they be superior?). The solution is human rights, as implemented in the Bill of Rights. The majority can't violate the rights of the minority.

From the author's note at the end:

"An earlier version of this article was submitted to the U.S. Army War College’s War Room blog back in the fall of 2024.... The piece was accepted and scheduled for publication in February. I found out on February 25, 2025 that USAWC had changed their mind and decided not to publish the piece, after having to pull another previously-published piece 'due to sensitivities' of 'unnamed critics that wield the power'."

> Hamas instead went to war with its coalition partner (Fatah, who remains in control of the West Bank) and took control of Gaza by a program of internal repression and political assassination.

One interesting note about the Hamas example is that it was the last election for the same reason a lot of countries have a last election: a powerful foreign imperialist nation intervened. In this case, Israel intervened directly to prop up Hamas in order to ensure Palestine destabilizion and prevent the election of a more leftist government. This was achieved through assassinations by the IDF of Palestinian politicians as well as directly funding Hamas.

Here is Benjamin Netanyahu quoted directly (https://m.maariv.co.il/journalists/opinions/Article-1008080), translated from Hebrew:

> Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas ... This is part of our strategy – to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank.

Netanyahu's associate and a high ranking IDF member said: (https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-10-11/ty-article/.p...)

> Openly Hamas is an enemy. Covertly, it’s an ally.

To broaden the scope back to beyond just Israel and Palestine and focus more on globally the destabilization of democratic governments through the efforts of imperialist nations, perhaps the army's role may also include efforts against said imperialist nations or their local allies and representatives.

In the USA I wonder if that means there'll be USA military units operating against what are functionally proxy arms of the PRC "turncoat" (but in their minds supporting democracy) units of the USA military. Living in Taiwan I can't fathom ever finding myself on the same side as the PRC on anything... Unless the nightmare situation of a full American slide into hyper imperialist fascism happens and there's basically only a couple superpowers on Earth capable of resisting them. Their jokes about invading Greenland and Canada are really sounding less like jokes every day...

#5: conflict between ethnic groups is, IMO, our big blindspot. An amnesia regarding the story of modern politics. Some version of "Rwanda 1994," occurred in many places, at the transition to modern nation state from whatever came before.

Before nation states, the world wasn't as divided geographically into nations. It got to be that way through violent conflict.

Empires like Austria-Hungary, Russia or the Ottoman Empire were multicultural. Places like Poland, Czechoslovakia had communities of Czechs, Slovaks, Germans, Jews, Hungarians, Roma. "German" ethnicity was spread out all over europe... and all the way to Kazakstan. The whole world was like this.

We "sorted" mostly through conflict... in the latter examples of transition to National democracies, or non-democratic nation states.

Ireland was partitioned along religious lines, in 1921. The world wars moved borders and people until strong majorities were created. When the Ottoman empire divided, Greeks and Turks kicked eachother out. When India gained independence Muslims and Hindus kicked eachother out.

Yugoslavia divided violently at a later date... as soon as totalitarianism ended. Cyprus divided in in 1974. Iraq divided internally into ethnic regions and neighbourhood after Sadaam. Syria is currently shedding its ethnic diversity. Conflicts in Sudan and Yemen are civil wars between different religions.

Democratic nation states with familiar features like left-right politics and a widely respected constitutional order... those generally appear post "sorting." The Military is always involved here.

We have some good ideas about defending an order. This text makes more sense in that context. Defending a democratic order. It doesn't tell us much about generating such an order. I think that a stronger narrative understanding of this history would serve an officer well. Allows a distinction between a defensive and offensive mission.

The speed with which the author diverts focus away from the perpetrators of the Abu Graib atrocities and toward Washington is, I think, a reason to take some of these conclusions with a grain of salt. I do think his linked evidence supports the argument that Washington played a key role in eroding norms behind PoW treatment, but I do not think it supports the idea that Washington is somehow more responsible than the soldiers and officers perpetrating, and complicit in, those acts.

The broad failure of human rights enforcement required for these events absolutely could not have happened over the objections of all, or even most, on the military side. Tacit and widespread approval of Washington's agenda on 'terrorism' was, at the very least, a precondition.

Taking this in context of his broader point: I can see why it would be comforting to believe institutional norms tend to be stronger than petty politics, but if that's the case he wants to make, I'm not convinced. To me, the preponderance of evidence, and the typical patterns that occur when a military attempts to circumvent democratic processes to 'safeguard rule of law', would indicate that military norms around human rights tend to break down, in fact, much quicker than the norms of democratic civil procedure. I also have no good reason to believe the US military is exceptionally ahead of the curve in this regard.

Could there be a situation where military intervention prevents a democratic state from deteriorating further? Theoretically. Are military leaders, generally, excellent judges of when such intervention would be in the public interest? Most of the history of military coups seems to indicate 'no.'

Democracy is just a different arrangement of same malice that exists in all other earlier forms of the rule. It's zero sum game. You focus on a few things at the cost of the other things. Overall, there is no net gain. You don't need to look beyond the coalition politics of Europe, for example.

In non-democratic systems, people are assumed to be not having the expertise needed to choose the ruler. In a democracy with a large number of political parties, people's vote will be highly fragmented, leaving the decision to coalition politics, making the people's vote meaningless.

Also, the assumption that crowd is right about what policies should a government have, is also questionable. 100 monkeys, or the leader elected by them, can't make a better decision than a single subject matter expert.

Since non-democratic systems give far more power and duration to their leaders, a good leader in these systems provide a superior rule than a good leader in a democratic system, while bad leaders in non-democratic systems is worse than bad leader in democratic system. Over a long-term of multiple generations, both even out.

As a military professional how do you determine morality?

If morality is the letter of the law, that law can be changed by an unjust majority. If the majority of Americans think it is OK to put dog collars on prisoners in Abu Ghraib, who are you to deny them that?

What else do we have to base our morals off of, religion?

This piece seems to suggest Napoleon was a bad thing for France, when he gave them the civil code and the grand architecture. In contrast to "democratic" Britain, where Wellington's legacy was the poor law and the workhouse.

> [Author’s note: An earlier version of this article was submitted to the U.S. Army War College’s War Room blog back in the fall of 2024, was put into their excellent editorial process, and benefitted greatly from their editor’s feedback. The piece was accepted and scheduled for publication in February. I found out on February 25, 2025 that USAWC had changed their mind and decided not to publish the piece, after having to pull another previously-published piece “due to sensitivities” of “unnamed critics that wield the power.” I’m grateful you can see it here, but I am sad that our Army’s institutions appear to have retreated so quickly from our shared values.- GBH]

I don't know whether "having to pull another previously-published piece" means that the USAWC received a coercive memo from the federal government, but after un-publishing the first piece the USAWC chilled its own press functions in declining to publish the contents of TFA and implicitly is doubting its own freedom of press.

An adjacent article with a legal focus, "A Politically Neutral Military Is Not Always Obedient", likely did not involve a First Amendment violation but did undergo a similar `almost published, then published elsewhere` process [1]:

> After a series of edits, the article was almost ready for publication, but the author reached out to withdraw the submission, citing intense pressure from his institution, the United States Military Academy West Point, to do so. This occurred on Jan. 23, three days after the inauguration.

[1] https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/a-politically-neutral-m...

> Hamas instead went to war with its coalition partner

This is revisionist history. The events of the Hamas/Farah civil war are far more complicated than just the typical "Hamas is evil"

So really, what hope do we have for some "enlightened" military stepping in to save the country?

> Having won the largest block of legislative seats, it was to govern in coalition with other political parties. Hamas instead went to war with its coalition partner (Fatah, who remains in control of the West Bank) and took control of Gaza by a program of internal repression and political assassination.

As with anything involving Israel/Palestine, the article takes an extremely simplistic view of the conflict between Hamas and Fatah. Anyone who followed the events in 2006/2007 after the election knows that both parties were equally to blame.

Hamas had good reason to believe Fatah was planning a violent takeover, and there were assassination attempts on Hamas's leader, widely believed to be by Fatah members. At the same time, Hamas committed their own crimes against Fatah.

There isn't a clean "They instigated, and we responded" event here by either side. They had been in conflict since prior to the election.

(Somewhat unrelated, but supporters of Hamas do correctly point out that "playing nice" hasn't worked out well for the Palestinians in the West Bank).

I pretty much stopped reading the article after this statement. It stinks strongly of "I have a thesis and let me bend reality to convince you of it".

The author has a quite narrow definition of democracy. I’d argue that any definition that makes checks and balances non democratic should be revised.

Great point on Gaza in the article: many often say "well the Palestinians voted for Hamas". But they don't clarify that it was a plurality not a majority and that subsequently Hamas killed off its opponents. Yes democracy may have worked part way, but it has to work all the way to be able to make the argument.

(1/2, continued in reply along with footnotes)

I do tend to associate military coups with democratic regimes that get too democratic.

Post note: after writing this I might go too hard on the admittedly widespread (but stupid) practice of using “democracy” in two senses: real democratic practice and calling governments that we like[0] democratic if they use that name (nominative democracy) and in turn saying that every action was “by the democratic government” or “by democracy”. But the article does go into the point about using “democracy” for propaganda:

> Indeed, in the present moment we now call anything we favor “democratic” and anything we oppose “un-democratic.”

So it still seems relevant.

[0] Long-standing democracies including, as we shall see, Myanmnar.

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> (“When a majority is included in a faction, the form of popular government, on the other hand, enables it to sacrifice to its ruling passion or interest, both the public good and the rights of other citizens”).

Just on the face of it without context this doesn’t say anything. Except maybe something like: when you include people outside our own circle of friends and associates, all kinds of shit can happen.

On the rights of other citizens: the democracy envisioned by the American founders was supposed to protect the rights of the opulent.[1]

> The allure of democracy is simple: by allowing people to collectively express their collective will, a representative government should be entitled to rely on their support in carrying out its political agenda.

The allure to who? The founders who wanted to protect their own rights?

Do you need popular support? There’s a Princeton study that showed that for 70% percent of Americans, their own policy preferences have no correlation with what is implemented.[2]

A modern democratic theory is that elites govern with the occassional input from regular people. Those are election cycles. But the input of regular people is more to do with settling inta-elite disputes. With a well-oiled smoke-filled room you don’t need their input that much.[3

> Nevertheless, in the 20th Century, as the memory of monarchies faded and the threats of fascism and communism blossomed, Americans have gradually come to believe that democracy embodied the American project. Despite America’s traditional suspicion of pure democracy (and James Madison’s plea for a government run by enlightened delegates), “democracy” came to stand for all that is good and holy in a world threatened by godless collectivism and/or authoritarianism. Beginning with President Wilson’s exhortation to “make the world safe for democracy” our Founders’ strong philosophical misgivings about mob rule appear to have been discarded as part of America’s search for common ground with allies against authoritarian alternatives. Unlike the Founders, 20th Century Americans weren’t trying to rise above the shortcomings of western European governments in such as those in France or Britain, but rather trying to find common cause with them.

Let’s talk about communism. Italy was dealing fine with getting rid of fascism. They worked against it towards the end of the war (lynching people like Mussolini) and they didn’t go home at the end of the war either. But these were socialists. So the CIA intervened in Operation Gladio, where they empowered fascists in order to get rid of the socialist influence.

Democracy? The US would rather Italy have fascism.

The rest of that paragraph is just political science buzzwords.

> Indeed, in the present moment we now call anything we favor “democratic” and anything we oppose “un-democratic.”

Indeed, the author just takes utterances at face value without thought.

Democracy for most people is good. That’s why they say it. Do they (the politicians, the pundits, the propagandists) mean it? Well do they mean it when they say they love peace, freedom, equality? Democracy to them is another propaganda word. Don’t overthink it.

> We do this even when the problem we are concerned with is itself an inherently democratic one, only reluctantly acknowledging the very significant role played by the pervasive (and anti-democratic) “checks and balances” built into our own federal constitution.

Don’t worry. Democracy that you don’t like can just be called “mob rule”. See previous sloganeering.

Or populism.

> The fault lines inherent in democracies—so well known to the Founders—can be showcased by (mostly) contemporary examples.

People who quote the Federalist Papers tend to think that whatever the founders said is the eternal truth, ipso facto they said it. So what are they?

> The problem of having the “last” election – electing anti-democratic government.

This is as much of a problem with democracy as an absolute monarch abolishing monarch. In other words it isn’t. Nothing is permanent. Nothing can be protected forever and flawlessly with the impeccable foresight of some founders.

I would argue that the social contract is a useful fiction, the same as 'divine right.'