Democracies and Small Wars

By their nature, democracies clearly have greater constraints than autocratic regimes on their freedom of action as they have to meet constitutional, legal and moral criteria in their use of force. This collection analyses a number of case studies showing how democracies have won small wars. Part 1 democracies and small wars in comparative perspective: western democracies in low intensity conflict - some postmodern aspects, Avi Kober; why do they quarrel? civil-military tensions in LIC situations, Stuart A. Cohen; democracies, limited war and psychological operations, Ron Schleifer; trends in low intensity ethnic conflict in democratic states in the post-Cold War era - a large N study, Jonathan Fox. Part 2 Case studies: the American way of war in the 21st century, Thomas G. Mahnken; the Indian way in counterinsurgency, Sankaran Kalyanaraman; winning a low intensity conflict - drawing lessons from the Turkish case, Umit Ozdag and Ersel Aydinli; Greek democracy on trial - from insurgency to civil war, 1943-49, Andre Gerolymatos; fatal choices - Israel's policy of targeted killing, Steven R. David; exploiting democracy - the IRA's tactical cease-fire, Jonathan Stevenson; between bullets and ballots - the Palestinians and Israeli democracy, Hillel Frisch.