Can Dictatorships Win Wars?

What the Last Three Years Have Taught Us

The 20^th Century was full of wars fought and lost by dictatorships and yet for the most part, many fought well and could have won. The Nazis might still be with us had they not decided to invade Russia or if Churchill was not Prime Minister of the UK. Or, had the Japanese not bombed Pearl Harbor. The Soviets fought well in WWII and were a big part of the allied victory. North Korea, with the help of China fought the South and the US to a standstill. It goes on and on. But in the 21^st century dictator armies have not fared too well.

Has warfare become too complicated for a dictatorship to handle with so much corruption and cronyism that is endemic to that style of government? Have the troops, usually poorly compensated and treated often as trash, lost the sense of duty to their country or ideology? These are important questions to ask as the increasingly shrinking free West faces challenges from dictatorships who have been increasing their military spending at rates that can only be interpreted as preparations for war.

Free countries for the most part, sadly, start their preparations only after the last of the denialists finally admit they need to start getting serious about aggression. Think Pearl Harbor, the Nazi invasion of Poland and then France, the North Korean crossing of the 38^th parallel in 1950, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, October 7, 2023. Free countries come less prepared than they should but the dedication of their soldiers and citizenry in addition to the inherent abilities of free markets to produce what is demanded give them the edge in battle. The lack of preparation is maddening but it seems to happen time and again and in spite of the “lessons learned” will probably happen again.

But what of the dictatorships who train their troops, buy and build weapons and prepare their citizenry for war against the satan de jure? We have seen over the last three years Russian troops fighting poorly and depending only on the terror they throw at Ukrainian cities plus the willingness to throw bodies into battle regardless of the dangers they face. Iran, for all its bluster has not been able to directly damage Israel in spite of two major attacks using what they have told the world are weapons Israel has no answer for. Hamas, with its preparation, tunnels and element surprise was thrown back in only two days and have not won a battle since then. Hezbollah’s famous rocket and missile store has not damaged, let alone destroyed one major military or civilian installation in over a year of battle and they have lost a majority of their strategic hardware, to say nothing of their leadership.

And just now, the Syrian army, backed by Russian air power and Iranian supported militias lasted not two weeks against a rebel group everyone thought was finished.

When tested in battle the region’s only democracy, Israel, has defeated or degraded all that its foes have thrown at it. The only other major armed forces in the region are Turkey and Egypt. The Egyptian army has not been tested in a major battle since 1973 and where they were tested in their fight against Al Qaeda types in the Sinai dessert, have not fared too well. The Turkish army has managed well in northern Syria although their main enemy, the Kurds, are sill a force to be reckoned with. Turkish president Erdogan has spent the last two decades purging the army of senior officers not considered loyal enough to him and his Islamic ideology, much as Stalin did in the leadup to WWII, and it is not yet clear if their professionalism is what is needed to win a major war – of if their troops will fight it.

In Ukraine, Putin has imported the feared North Korean troops, but they have fought poorly away from home. It is difficult to say if this is how they would fight in the Korean peninsula against US and South Korean forces, but it is certainly not a good sign. In addition to losing nearly 10% of their forces, the North Korean troops, in their first taste of the outside world, seem to have become addicted to pornography. Not to compare the two eras or the quality of the people fighting, one is reminded of the WWI song whose chorus started “How ya gonna keep 'em down on the farm after they've seen Paree?”.

What about China and their well armed, well trained army? How will they perform when there are faced, not with training exercises or civilians in Tiananmen Square but against the US Navy and Air Force and better fed and more free US Marines? This is a question no one wants to know the answer to, but after what they have seen over the past three years, Xi must be wondering.

Moving from personnel to hardware we have seen, too that the technology and arms of the dictators is no match for that of the free world. In Ukraine, stories abound of officers who are programmers and engineers jerry-rigging simple drones into deadly weapons and of being able to quickly absorb new, sophisticated arms. In Israel, strategic forces like the F15, F16 and Stealth F35 make advanced Russian anti-aircraft systems look like their WWII counterparts. These new missile and air attack defense systems depend on sophisticated and fragile radars and sensors and American combat jets upgraded with Israeli technology and piloted by dedicated and brilliant men and women were able to overcome all the Russians (and presumably the Chinese?) have been able to throw at them.

One area where dictatorships are on par with free countries, you have to admit is the ability to use relatively cheap drones to their advantage, but even there, Israel has managed to protect its infantry and armored corps better than one expected. This is due to the creativity inherent in a successful, contemporary free economy which is able to go from idea to product in a short time. When one’s country and the life of one’s family is on the line, that motivation shortens the “time to market – or battlefield, as the case may be.

There are those who look at dictatorships like China and marvel at how they just get things done but a look at the economies of the major dictatorships, China, Russia, Iran, Venezuela, etc, etc make you want to live in a place where you can’t get things done – at least by the government.

Iran has had to shut off its electricity in factories and stores as it had to chose between heating homes in the winter and having a functioning economy. The fact that an oil rich country like Iran can’t produce the energy necessary to turn on the lights is due to the corruption and cronyism that is the bread and butter of dictatorships. China has a real estate problem caused by excess building and a dwindling population – both of which were government policy. It seems that with their vaunted math and technology oriented education they still need to steal intellectual property rather than create it. This is not to belittle what China has done economically over the last 3 decades or to reduce their enormous manufacturing sector to robbery only, but the way forward in warfare will require know how and creativity that does not seem to be part of the way of the Chinese Communist Party. They seem to be ahead of the US in hypersonic missiles and are, with Russian help, catching up on submarine technology that the US still dominates – so it is not all bad for China. But as war starts and progresses, will they be able to both produce what is necessary and keep on the technological advances that come seemingly monthly?

All that being said, we do have to admit that the US has still not been able to ramp up their industrial manufacturing to levels necessary to equip their and their allies armed forces in a major war. Just look at Boeing’s inability to build a new Air Force 1 due, it seems, to a lack of qualified workers as well as the regulatory nightmare the government has installed. The West has a long way to go to be able to manufacture enough jets, tanks, planes, ships and even drones to fight a prolonged war. And now there must be very expensive missile defense protecting all the manufacturing capabilities.

China also controls key minerals in the production of just about every advanced technology and that is an advantage they have due to America’s dream to save the planet at the expense of their country. China, even as a dictatorship has many advantages over the free countries. But the question remains how well will their soldiers fight, how will their armaments and other hardware hold up in wartime and most importantly, will they be able to adapt to the inevitable unexpected challenges that the battlefield brings?

The Syria example and the utter failure of Iran itself in its battles with Israel show the “paper-tiger-edness” that seems to be in the DNA of dictatorships. Iran has shown that their technology and that of their Russia allies, is inferior to America’s and Israel’s. But it is not just the technology that is delivered but the quality of the people adapting and operating it from pilots to engineers from field officers to young recruits sitting in command and control centers that determines the effectiveness of equipment. North Korean soldiers that have never used the internet or Iranian air defense operators who can do nothing other than follow manuals are not able to use technology to its fullest, no matter how sophisticated it is. Take someone like me and give him an iPhone and I will be able to make calls, send and receive texts, take pictures and watch videos – but that is where it begins and ends. Give an iPhone to someone more creative, motivated and curious about technology and he will turn it into a much more powerful tool.

That is not to say Iranians, Russians or Chinese are not capable of doing the same as Americans and Israelis but they don’t have the same mindset as they spend their time either looking over their shoulder to see who is watching them or they are doing the watching themselves. They seem to be able to be experts at hacking into just about anything and I don’t mean to belittle their technical savvy – rather in warfare it is the ability to turn chaos to your advantage that makes the officer and soldier great or the technology superior. Things done regularly, according to the manual, will be countermanded rather quickly and then your superior technology becomes useless.

The example from Syria is most important when looking at the motivation of the forces. Even the famed Division 4 of the Syrian army, commanded by Basher Assad’s brother, Maher and given better conditions than other divisions collapsed along with the rest of the army and ran away to Iraq. You will fight as long as you think failure will get you or your family in one of the torture chambers called prisons in Baathist Syria, but as soon as that fear ends – and it ends when you see an escape route – you run and don’t look back. Russia had the same problem with deserters at the start of the war and you have to wonder what, other than the threat of being killed by their own officers, keeps North Koreans from running to the Ukrainian side.

We saw how Ukrainians and Israelis responded respectively to the slaughter perpetrated on their fellow citizens and we see how soldiers in free countries respond to crisis.

So, can dictatorships win wars in the modern world? To win wars means to have a citizenry motivated to live and not dedicated to death and destruction. To win wars means you need both citizens who know how to follow rules and those that don’t. To win wars means you need people used to working long hours to get the impossible done and to be able to work as a team. To win wars means soldiers on the front know their families are being taken care of.

This is not to say that free countries have nothing to fear from their enemies but rather that when push comes to shove, the better bet is the free country. Not all free countries, to be sure. One would be hard pressed to put one’s money on the Netherlands, Belgium and Spain who seem to have lost all desire to live as free people. We can include many other advanced and successful countries in this list.

This is also not to say that those fear mongers (like myself) who warn of coming disasters ought to be ignored. For our goal as free countries is to win at the lowest cost to human life possible and that can only occur with the utmost preparation. It means raising and training an army large and powerful enough to take on all comers, but it also means providing our children with tools necessary to be brave, creative and strong individuals – learning STEM but also learning and believing in where they come from and what their country and traditions really represent. That means culture and religion. Religion is as important in a free country as it is in an un-free country, it is as important in as prosperous country as it is in poor one (read Daniel Henninger’s recent column: Merry Bomb-Free Christmas). But the moment religion becomes disengaged from reason (and I don’t mean relying only on reason) is the moment it turns from productive to dangerous. Without going too deeply into it, lets just say that religion can be used as a guide to the country and individual but not as an excuse to trample on the country and individual. The same can be said about ideology. As for culture - the music, history, literature and art need to be inspiring to the individual and give a sense of unity to the country. Both of these “uses” for religion and culture cannot be positive in unfree countries since they will either be manipulated by the dictator or used as a reason to fight against the dictator. Therefore, they can’t be used as factors in winning wars against external enemies.

Dictatorships can win wars – but only against enemies who have become lazy, intellectually and physically. Dictatorships can win wars - but only against countries that have stopped believing in themselves.