International Studies Compendium Project

Extract

Comment on this article   Military effectiveness is a central issue for international relations. An ineffective military can mean state death, government collapse, foreign rule, or grinding stalemate and economic ruin in protracted warfare. Ba'athist Iraq fielded one of the world's largest militaries in 2003, but its ineffectiveness cost the regime its rule and its leader his life when it proved unable to thwart a US and British invasion ( Biddle 2007a ). Military ineffectiveness in 1915–17 exhausted continental Europe, enabled the rise of Communist Russia, sealed the decline of Britain, and sowed the seeds of renewed world warfare ( Millett and Murray 1988 ). By contrast, effective militaries can preserve threatened polities, empower otherwise marginal actors, or remake the maps of entire continents. Modern Israel owes its existence to a military whose effectiveness outstripped its size in a series of wars against larger, more populous Arab states between 1948 and 1973 ( Cordesman and Wagner 1990 ). More recently, its nemesis Hezbollah fielded fewer than 7000 fighters in south Lebanon in 2006, yet their military effectiveness enabled them both to survive Israeli attack and to profit from the war politically; the Israeli military's relative ineffectiveness cost their Chief of Staff his job, and the Kadima Party its rule in subsequent elections ( Biddle and Friedman 2008 ; Matthews ... log in or subscribe to read full text