fbpx
Politics Foreign Affairs Culture Fellows Program

Weak and Reckless Democracies

One can envision a democratically-elected Iranian government that pursues nuclear weapons, offers rhetorical support to Hamas and Hezbollah, but also enjoys better relations with the U.S. and the international community, because democracies, all other things being equal, can be expected to be less reckless and inconsistent. ~Shadi Hamid Via Kevin Sullivan It is worth noting […]

One can envision a democratically-elected Iranian government that pursues nuclear weapons, offers rhetorical support to Hamas and Hezbollah, but also enjoys better relations with the U.S. and the international community, because democracies, all other things being equal, can be expected to be less reckless and inconsistent. ~Shadi Hamid

Via Kevin Sullivan

It is worth noting that Hamid does not quote or address the part of my argument that already anticipated this objection. One of the main points I was making was that the military establishment and IRGC will likely remain in place no matter what form the civilian government takes. If that were the case, it would not be the civilian government with its “larger number of people” and “more veto points” that would have the final say on matters of national security and foreign policy. As in Pakistan and, to a lesser extent, in Turkey, a democratic Iranian government would be significantly constrained in its formation of security and foreign policies by the political and economic power of military institutions. One could say that this is an improvement over the status quo, but the practical difference would be negligible. In the end, the same institutions that shape Iranian policy today would most likely remain as they are.

It is also quite easy to envision a democratic Iran whose government sees a nuclear arsenal and support for proxies in Lebanon and Palestine as strategically necessary things. It was the formally democratic government of Pakistan that encouraged the rise of the Taliban as part of its strategy of competing for influence in Afghanistan. It was a democratic Pakistani government that tested nuclear weapons and it was under the same government that Pakistan started the Kargil war. Of course, one can object that it was really the military that was the driving force behind all of this and that the civilian government had no choice but to accede to the wishes of the military, but that is just the point I was originally making.

Besides, if we review the last ten years, can we really say that it has been the democracies of the world that have been “less reckless” in the use of military force? One can make the argument that Georgia was actually ruled by a demagogue with authoritarian instincts, but the “democratically-elected government” of Georgia embarked on an extremely reckless course of action in its escalation of the conflict with the separatist republics. Our own government launched one of the more reckless, ill-considered wars of aggression in postwar history, and over a dozen other democratic states supported the action with many committing substantial forces of their own. The Israeli public was united behind an escalation of the 2006 Lebanon war that proved to be very unwise. Thaksin engaged in a heavy-handed, counterproductive “drug war” in the south of the country that contributed to the military’s decision to remove him from power.

Some of these democratic governments were relatively new, and others were mature, well-established democracies. There does not seem to have been anything in their democratic political systems that could have made these errors less likely. If most democracies do not resort to these methods, there does not seem to be anything inherent in democratic regimes that is responsible for this. Indeed, all of the alleged safeguards that democracies are supposed to provide to prevent reckless, ill-considered and arbitrary military action completely failed in at least three of these cases. Far from being a check on recklessness, broad popular consent emboldened all four governments to take action without fully thinking through the consequences.

P.S. I would also add that the reverse of Hamid’s claim about democracies does not seem to apply very well to authoritarian governments. Most authoritarian governments seem to be highly predictable and unwilling to take many unnecessary risks. Then again, one could make this observation about most governments regardless of regime type, which should make us question whether there is anything specific to a democratic system that prevents recklessness.

Advertisement

Comments

The American Conservative Memberships
Become a Member today for a growing stake in the conservative movement.
Join here!
Join here