January 7, 2005
Do dictatorships or democracies produce better soldiers?
Noteworthy exchanges recently prompted by Max Hastings' Armageddon: The Battle for Germany, 1944-45 -- in particular, the claim that the Allies' citizen-soldiers were less effective than the soldiers of totalitarian states, and were less effectively (because less profligately) used.
Online hostilities opened with Andrew Sullivan citing Hastings in attacking the argument that democracies are inherently more formidable in war than dictatorships. This prompted a worthy response from Brad DeLong, who pointed out that Allied military performance in WW2 hardly indicated an unwillingness to take casualties, and that in any event, the willingness to take casualties is by itself no guarantee of military effectiveness (there's more, of course -- I do expect readers to follow these links for themselves, ahem!). Which in turn elicited more good commentary from Steven Sailer, who contradicted DeLong in pointing to evidence that German soldiers were indeed more effective than Allied, while ending up supporting DeLong's larger point by arguing that the greater German effectiveness had nothing to do with the nature of the Nazi state and everything to do with the greater egalitarianism (!) and cohesiveness within units and across ranks in the German army.
Posted by David on January 7, 2005 7:42 PM
This discussion has been going on for some time. IIRC it was raised as an explanation for Napoleon's early successes and his later failures (after declaring himself emperor).
Posted by: Dave Schuler on January 8, 2005 10:17 AM
I would guess the basic debate goes back to antiquity, starting with Greeks vs Persians.
Posted by: David on January 8, 2005 2:15 PM
I believe if you read about war from the viewpoint of the foot soldier, in WW II, the Japanese and the German soldiers were heavily indoctrinated. Both thought (and in the case of the Germans it was correct) that defeat would be a tremendous national catastrophe.
The German soldiers were very well trained and had a highly trained and motivated officer corp.
The German army maintained unit cohesion. There were no replacements in the German units. You fought until your unit was either wiped out or had suffered high enought casualities to be withdrawn from the line and reconstituted. The American system of just replacing casualties was very damaging to unit cohesion.
German discipline was harsh. There were many, many Germans shot for desertion or other infraction. Simply being found behind the lines without authorization would get you shot. I believe only one American was shot for desertion during WW II.
Of interest, the democracies won WW II (saving Russia from defeat along the way, although Russia went on to play a big role in defeating Germany, we all agree) and also won the Cold War.
What most people don't realize is that Democratic countries are far more adaptable than dicatatorships, and far more productive. Almost nobody realizes that England produced more aircraft in every year of WW II than Germany produced. Add to this the gigantic output of the USA, and you realize that Germany had NO chance to win WW II once England survived the Blitz.
Now, that is interesting.
Joel
Posted by: joel on January 9, 2005 8:01 PM
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