War and Democracy: A Comparative Study of the Korean War and the Peloponnesian War - Book Review

Naval War College Review,  Summer, 2002  by Karl Walling

• E-mail
• Print
• Link

McCann, David R., and Barry S. Strauss, eds. War and Democracy: A Comparative Study of the Korean War and the Peloponnesian War. London: M. E. Sharpe, 2001. 385pp. $77.95

"At first glance," the editors of this volume observe, "it seems odd to compare the Peloponnesian War and the Korean War." One conflict was ancient, the other modern; one was long, the other short; one featured multiple battles at sea, the other was essentially a ground war, albeit with imaginative and potentially decisive amphibious dimensions.

So why compare these two wars? The reason is that they were (and were perceived to be) largely struggles between different kinds of societies--democratic Athens versus authoritarian Sparta in Greece; and the liberal-democratic United States versus international communism in Korea, led by the Soviet Union with assistance from China. These were tests of democracy during great struggles for hegemony, with Athens ultimately failing that test after twenty-seven years of war, and the United States surviving the challenge after forty-odd years of the Cold War. Why did one democracy succumb and the other prevail?

Foundations of an answer lie in this book's five sections, which respectively address the character of democracy at war, the nature of these different wars, the dilemmas of small states during struggles between major powers, the dynamics of populism and civil-military relations in these conflicts, and the culture of democracy at war.

For readers of this journal, the essay by the noted Thucydides scholar Victor Davis Hanson is perhaps most important. The instituticins of American representative democracy and Athenian direct democracy are radically different, but their shared political culture, devoted to equality and liberty, has encouraged a degree of dynamic innovation no authoritarian government has been able to match. Nonetheless, it can be dangerously misleading to impose a Cold War framework on the early struggle between Athens, a democracy at home but a tyrant over its allies, and Sparta, tyrannical at home but relatively mild in its treatment of allies. As one contributor, Robert Kagan, suggests, the American-led anticommunist alliance in Europe and Asia was not a Delian League, exacting tribute at sword point and crushing all who resisted it. Athens turned the Delian League into something like the Warsaw Pact, which explains why both Athens and the Soviet Union were hated and could not count on voluntary support from their allies. The willing assistance of allies for the more benevolent hegemony of the United States goes far to explain why the latter succeeded where Athens failed.

Noteworthy too are essays exploring the problem of maintaining civil liberties and civilian control of the military. Ellen Schrecker shows how the Korean War strengthened McCarthyism in 1950, and Stephen J. Whitfield considers how the American populist tradition rendered the United States vulnerable to the worst excesses of the senator from Wisconsin. Jennifer T. Roberts's insightful discussion of the cults of personality attached to Alcibiades and Douglas MacArthur helps us understand why "loose cannons" are less likely to rise to the top in the United States but also less likely to be punished as severely as they might deserve. Oddly, the only discussion of the most infamous demagogue in wartime Athens, Cleon, occurs not in this section but in another essay, on a fundamentally different topic--an attempt by Josiah Ober to reconcile Thucydides the realist strategic theorist with Thucydides the consummate historian of the Peloponnesian War.

Perhaps the most striking essay is Gregory Crane's, on the problems that small states, like Plataea and Korea, face in preserving their independence and security when caught up in struggles between would-be hegemons. Dae-Sook Suh and Kongdan Oh invite the American reader to explore the internal dynamics of North and South Korean policy and strategy, while Kurt A. Raaflaub and Dong-Wook Shin offer intriguing perspectives on the bellicose character of Athenian political culture and the efforts of Koreans to resurrect a national identity from the ashes of war.

This eclectic mix of essays reminds us that democracy can be both an asset and a liability to its votaries in time of war.

COPYRIGHT 2002 U.S. Naval War College
COPYRIGHT 2004 Gale Group