- Quick action is more important than outnumbering an adversary
- Mobilize only enough resources for a quick campaign that will not require resupply from home
- Provide private goods to soldiers to motivate them to fight.
- If the initial resources are not enough to win, give up the fight rather than drain the treasury
In contrast, BDM and Smith summarize Casper Weinberger's advice for Presidents contemplating war as follows:
- Commit forces to combat only if doing so is vital to the national interest
- If forces are committed, commit enough to win. If you aren't willing to commit the forces needed to win, than don't commit any at all.
- Have clearly defined political and military objectives, a clear cut plan for achieving them and the resources needed for doing so.
- Constantly reassess the relationship between objectives and forces committed and adjust them as needed.
- Before committing troops to combat, ensure that the action is supported by the people and Congress.
- Use force only as a last resort.
Though Sun and Weinberger offering completely different advice, BDM and Smith argue that each is offering very good advice to their intended recipient. Sun Tzu was giving advice to ancient kings who were leaders of small coalition regimes and Weinberger was giving advice to US Presidents who are leaders of large coalition regimes. Therefore, though the rules of warfare may be the same for both types of leaders, the rule of political survival are very different for leaders of small vs large coalition regimes.
In a small coalition regime, the leader (call him a dictator) survives in office with the support of a small coalition of supporters. Because they are small in number, the dictator can best ensure their loyalty by providing them with private benefits. As a result, the leader's survival depends not on his job performance as a national leader, but on his ability to keep the flow of private benefits to supporters going. As long as the private benefits flow to the leader's essential supporters, the leader is free to do whatever he wants with regard to policy, including the prosecution of a war. However, the leader will have only the resources he has left over after paying off his supporters to devote to the war effort.
With this in mind, it should be clear that Sun Tzu's advice is tailor made for a dictator and we should expect dictators to behave in more of less this way. That is, we should expect them to act opportunistically and make bold, if economical, moves. While this may provide them with small scale successes, we should also expect them to fail with some frequency, either from miscalculation or lack of follow-on efforts. In general, we should expect to see them fight wars on a shoe string budget and to avoid making large scale commitments of resources to the fight.
The leader of a large coalition regime (call her a democrat) is in an entirely different situation. She depends on the support of too many people (millions in the case of a democracy) to be able to pay them off with private benefits. Therefore, she stays in power by providing public benefits in the form of good (from the supporters point of view) public policy. As a result her political survival depends on her performance as a national leader in the eyes of these supporters. Where the dictator is largely free to do as he pleases with regard to prosecuting a war, the democrat has her head in a political noose as she will be called to account for all her decisions. She must make sure that the issue or cause at stake is one that her essential supporters care about and gauge how much these supporters will be willing to sacrifice to prevail. She must calculate whether the resources the supporters will deem appropriate to expend will in fact be enough to win the conflict. Then, if she engages in the war, she must not only win it, but do so in a seemingly competent manner. Anything less will open the door to a challenger for her job.
Indeed, Weinberger's 6 points pretty well cover the pre-war calculations a democrat must make if she wants to keep her job. Therefore, if we assume that democratic leaders are aware of the necessities of political survival, we should expect that they actually will tend to act the way Weinberger argues they should. That is to say that they will tend to view war as a last resort, seek political consultations and support before engaging in action, and generally be more deliberate in initiating war. However, once they decide to fight, they are going to fight to win and devote significant resources to the process.
While the Ukraine crisis hasn't erupted into a full scale interstate war, Putin's actions and those of Western leaders seem too conform with the predictions of Selectorate Theory. Putin made a bold move to snatch Crimea at a very low cost but hasn't really followed up with much effort. He put large numbers of troops on the border but hasn't seen fit to use them in support of the separatists. Now, in the wake of the downing of Malaysian airliner, the Christian Science Monitor reports that he seems to have pulled a U-turn by telling his Security Council that there is no immediate threat from the west and suggesting that he might use his leverage to influence the separatists towards a peace process.
In contrast to Putin's staccato moves, leaders of more democratic nations may seem ponderous. But Selectorate Theory tells us that this is the nature of the beast. Democratic leaders must not get out ahead of their large coalition of supporters and pursue goals that the coalition does not deeply desire, and they must take care not to make mistakes (like giving high performance surface to air missiles to rebels) lest their supporters turn on them. However, if their supporting coalition demands action, then action they must have, though, again, that action must be successful (or at least perceived as being so). Western democracies may move plodding pace, but they find it hard to stop or change direction once committed to moving.
For this reason, Putin would be well advised to rein things in. The destruction of MH17 has struck a cord with the supporters of western democratic leaders and has probably increased domestic demands that those leaders do something. While it looks like we are a long way from European publics accepting the cost of boycotting Russian gas and oil (much less going to war), the murder of close to 300 people is a step in that direction and will force western leaders to look harder for someway to demonstrate their competence to their supporters. Putin might do well to consider how he can allow them to do so at the least cost to himself and his coalition.
While the Ukraine crisis hasn't erupted into a full scale interstate war, Putin's actions and those of Western leaders seem too conform with the predictions of Selectorate Theory. Putin made a bold move to snatch Crimea at a very low cost but hasn't really followed up with much effort. He put large numbers of troops on the border but hasn't seen fit to use them in support of the separatists. Now, in the wake of the downing of Malaysian airliner, the Christian Science Monitor reports that he seems to have pulled a U-turn by telling his Security Council that there is no immediate threat from the west and suggesting that he might use his leverage to influence the separatists towards a peace process.
In contrast to Putin's staccato moves, leaders of more democratic nations may seem ponderous. But Selectorate Theory tells us that this is the nature of the beast. Democratic leaders must not get out ahead of their large coalition of supporters and pursue goals that the coalition does not deeply desire, and they must take care not to make mistakes (like giving high performance surface to air missiles to rebels) lest their supporters turn on them. However, if their supporting coalition demands action, then action they must have, though, again, that action must be successful (or at least perceived as being so). Western democracies may move plodding pace, but they find it hard to stop or change direction once committed to moving.
For this reason, Putin would be well advised to rein things in. The destruction of MH17 has struck a cord with the supporters of western democratic leaders and has probably increased domestic demands that those leaders do something. While it looks like we are a long way from European publics accepting the cost of boycotting Russian gas and oil (much less going to war), the murder of close to 300 people is a step in that direction and will force western leaders to look harder for someway to demonstrate their competence to their supporters. Putin might do well to consider how he can allow them to do so at the least cost to himself and his coalition.
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