Book II
Chapter XXII
WHY DEMOCRATIC NATIONS NATURALLY DESIRE PEACE, AND DEMOCRATIC
ARMIES, WAR
The same interests, the same fears, the same passions that deter democratic nations from revolutions deter them also from war; the spirit of military glory and the spirit of revolution are weakened at the same time and by the same causes. The ever increasing numbers of men of property who are lovers of peace, the growth of personal wealth which war so rapidly consumes, the mildness of manners, the gentleness of heart, those tendencies to pity which are produced by the equality of conditions, that coolness of understanding which renders men comparatively insensible to the violent and poetical excitement of arms, all these causes concur to, quench the military spirit. I think it may be admitted as a general and constant rule that among civilized nations the warlike passions will become more rare and less intense in proportion as social conditions are more equal.
War is nevertheless an occurrence to which all nations are subject, democratic nations as well as others. Whatever taste they may have for peace, they must hold themselves in readiness to repel aggression, or, in other words, they must have an army. Fortune, which has conferred so many peculiar benefits upon the inhabitants of the United States, has placed them in the midst of a wilderness, where they have, so to speak, no neighbors; a few thousand soldiers are sufficient for their wants. But this is peculiar to America, not to democracy.
The equality of conditions and the manners as well as the institutions resulting from
it do not exempt a democratic people from the necessity of standing armies, and their
armies always exercise a powerful influence over their fate. It is therefore of singular
importance to inquire what are the natural propensities of the men of whom these armies
are composed.
Among aristocratic nations, especially among those in which birth is the only source of
rank, the same inequality exists in the army as in the nation; the officer is noble, the
soldier is a serf; the one is naturally called upon to command, the other to obey. In
aristocratic armies the private soldier's ambition is therefore circumscribed within very
narrow limits. Nor has the ambition of the officer an unlimited range. An aristocratic
body not only forms a part of the scale of ranks in the nation, but contains a scale of
ranks within itself; the members of whom it is composed are placed one above another in a
particular and unvarying manner. Thus one man is born to the command of a regiment,
another to that of a company. When once they have reached the utmost object of their
hopes, they stop of their own accord and remain contented with their lot.
There is, besides, a strong cause that in aristocracies weakens the officer's desire of
promotion. Among aristocratic nations an officer, independently of his rank in the army,
also occupies an elevated rank in society; the former is almost always, in his eyes, only
an appendage to the latter. A nobleman who embraces the profession of arms follows it less
from motives of ambition than from a sense of the duties imposed on him by his birth. He
enters the army in order to find an honorable employment for the idle years of his youth
and to be able to bring back to his home and his peers some honorable recollections of
military life; but his principal object is not to obtain by that profession either
property, distinction, or power, for he possesses these advantages in his own right and
enjoys them without leaving his home.
In democratic armies all the soldiers may become officers, which makes the desire of
promotion general and immeasurably extends the bounds of military ambition. The officer,
on his part, sees nothing that naturally and necessarily stops him at one grade more than
at another; and each grade has immense importance in his eyes because his rank in society
almost always depends on his rank in the army. Among democratic nations it often happens
that an officer has no property but his pay and no distinction but that of military
honors; consequently, as often as his duties change, his fortune changes and he becomes,
as it were, a new man. What was only an appendage to his position in aristocratic armies
has thus become the main point, the basis of his whole condition. Under the old French
monarchy officers were always called by their titles of nobility; they are now always
called by the title of their military rank. This little change in the forms of language
suffices to show that a great revolution has taken place in the constitution of society
and in that of the army.
In democratic armies the desire of advancement is almost universal: it is ardent,
tenacious, perpetual; it is strengthened by all other desires and extinguished only with
life itself. But it is easy to see that, of all armies in the world, those in which
advancement must be slowest in time of peace are the armies of democratic countries. As
the number of commissions is naturally limited while the number of competitors is almost
unlimited, and as the strict law of equality is over all alike, none can make rapid
progress; many can make no progress at all. Thus the desire of advancement is greater and
the opportunities of advancement fewer there than elsewhere. All the ambitious spirits of
a democratic army are consequently ardently desirous of war, because war makes vacancies
and warrants the violation of that law of seniority which is the sole privilege natural to
democracy.
We thus arrive at this singular consequence, that, of all armies, those most ardently
desirous of war are democratic armies, and of all nations, those most fond of peace are
democratic nations; and what makes these facts still more extraordinary is that these
contrary effects are produced at the same time by the principle of equality.
All the members of the community, being alike, constantly harbor the wish and discover the
possibility of changing their condition and improving their welfare; this makes them fond
of peace, which is favorable to industry and allows every man to pursue his own little
undertakings to their completion. On the other hand, this same equality makes soldiers
dream of fields of battle, by increasing the value of military honors in the eyes of those
who follow the profession of arms and by rendering those honors accessible to all. In
either case the restlessness of the heart is the same, the taste for enjoyment is
insatiable, the ambition of success as great; the means of gratifying it alone are
different.
These opposite tendencies of the nation and the army expose democratic communities to
great dangers. When a military spirit forsakes a people, the profession of arms
immediately ceases to be held in honor and military men fall to the lowest rank of the
public servants; they are little esteemed and no longer understood. The reverse of what
takes place in aristocratic ages then occurs; the men who enter the army are no longer
those of the highest, but of the lowest class. Militar ambition is indulged only when no
other is possible. Hence arises a circle of cause and consequence from which it is
difficult to escape: the best part of the nation shuns the military profession because
that profession is not honored, and the profession is not honored because the best part of
the nation has ceased to follow it.
It is then no matter of surprise that democratic armies are often restless, ill-tempered,
and dissatisfied with their lot, although their physical condition is commonly far better
and their discipline less strict than in other countries. The soldier feels that he
occupies an inferior position, and his wounded pride either stimulates his taste for
hostilities that would render his services necessary or gives him a desire for revolution,
during which he may hope to win by force of arms the political influence and personal
importance now denied him.
The composition of democratic armies makes this last-mentioned danger much to be feared.
In democratic communities almost every man has some property to preserve; but democratic
armies are generally led by men without property, most of whom have little to lose in
civil broils. The bulk of the nation is naturally much more afraid of revolutions than in
the ages of aristocracy, but the leaders of the army much less so.
Moreover, as among democratic nations ( to repeat what I have just remarked ) the
wealthiest, best-educated, and ablest men seldom adopt the military profession, the army,
taken collectively, eventually forms a small nation by itself, where the mind is less
enlarged and habits are more rude than in the nation at large. Now, this small uncivilized
nation has arms in its possession and alone knows how to use them; for, indeed, the
pacific temper of the community increases the danger to which a democratic people is
exposed from the military and turbulent spirit of the army. Nothing is so dangerous as an
army in the midst of an unwarlike nation; the excessive love of the whole community for
quiet continually puts the constitution at the mercy of the soldiery.
It may therefore be asserted, generally speaking, that if democratic nations are naturally
prone to peace from their interests and their propensities, they are constantly drawn to
war and revolutions by their armies. Military revolutions, which are scarcely ever to be
apprehended in aristocracies, are always to be dreaded among democratic nations. These
perils must be reckoned among the most formidable that beset their future fate, and the
attention of statesmen should be sedulously applied to find a remedy for the evil.
When a nation perceives that it is inwardly affected by the restless ambition of its army,
the first thought which occurs is to give this inconvenient ambition an object by going to
war. I do not wish to speak ill of war: war almost always enlarges the mind of a people
and raises their character. In some cases it is the only check to the excessive growth of
certain propensities that naturally spring out of the equality of conditions, and it must
be considered as a necessary corrective to certain inveterate diseases to which democratic
communities are liable.
War has great advantages, but we must not flatter ourselves that it can diminish the
danger I have just pointed out. That peril is only suspended by it, to return more
fiercely when the war is over; for armies are much more impatient of peace after having
tasted military exploits. War could be a remedy only for a people who were always athirst
for military glory.
I foresee that all the military rulers who may rise up in great democratic nations will
find it easier to conquer with their armies than to make their armies live at peace after
conquest. There are two things that a democratic people will always find very difficult,
to begin a war and to end it. Again, if war has some peculiar advantages for democratic
nations, on the other hand it exposes them to certain dangers which aristocracies have no
cause to dread to an equal extent. I shall point out only two of these.
Although war gratifies the army, it embarrasses and often exasperates that countless
multitude of men whose minor passions every day require peace in order to be satisfied.
Thus there is some risk of its causing, under another form, the very disturbance it is
intended to prevent.
No protracted war can fail to endanger the freedom of a democratic country. Not indeed
that after every victory it is to be apprehended that the victorious generals will possess
themselves by force of the supreme power, after the manner of Sulla and Caesar; the danger
is of another kind. War does not always give over democratic communities to military
government, but it must invariably and immeasurably increase the powers of civil
government; it must almost compulsorily concentrate the direction of all men and the
management of all things in the hands of the administration. If it does not lead to
despotism by sudden violence, it prepares men for it more gently by their habits. All
those who seek to destroy the liberties of a democratic nation ought to know that war is
the surest and the shortest means to accomplish it. This is the first axiom of the
science.
One remedy, which appears to be obvious when the ambition of soldiers and officers becomes
the subject of alarm, is to augment the number of commissions to be distributed by
increasing the army. This affords temporary relief, but it plunges the country into deeper
difficulties at some future period. To increase the army may produce a lasting effect in
an aristocratic community, because military ambition is there confined to one class of
men, and the ambition of each individual stops, as it were, at a certain limit, so that it
may be possible to satisfy all who feel its influence. But nothing is gained by increasing
the army among a democratic people, because the number of aspirants always rises in
exactly the same ratio as the army itself. Those whose claims have been satisfied by the
creation of new commissions are instantly succeeded by a fresh multitude beyond all power
of satisfaction; and even those who were but now satisfied soon begin to crave more
advancement, for the same excitement prevails in the ranks of the army as in the civil
classes of democratic society, and what men want is, not to reach a certain grade, but to
have constant promotion. Though these wants may not be very vast, they are perpetually
recurring. Thus a democratic nation, by augmenting its army, allays only for a time the
ambition of the military profession, which soon becomes even more formidable because the
number of those who feel it is increased.
I am of the opinion that a restless and turbulent spirit is an evil inherent in the very
constitution of democratic armies and beyond hope of cure. The legislators of democracies
must not expect to devise any military organization capable by its influence of calming
and restraining the military profession; their efforts would exhaust their powers before
the object could be attained. The remedy for the vices of the army is not to be found in
the army itself, but in the country. Democratic nations are naturally afraid of
disturbance and of despotism; the object is to turn these natural instincts into
intelligent, deliberate, and lasting tastes.
When men have at last learned to make a peaceful and profitable use of freedom and have
felt its blessings, when they have conceived a manly love of order and have freely
submitted themselves to discipline, these same men, if they follow the profession of arms,
bring into it, unconsciously and almost against their will, these same habits and manners.
The general spirit of the nation, being infused into the spirit peculiar to the army,
tempers the opinions and desires engendered by military life, or represses them by the
mighty force of public opinion. Teach the citizens to be educated, orderly, firm, and free
and the soldiers will be disciplined and obedient.
Any law that, in repressing the turbulent spirit of the army, should tend to diminish the
spirit of freedom in the nation and to overshadow the notion of law and right would defeat
its object; it would do much more to favor than to defeat the establishment of military
tyranny. After all, and in spite of all precautions, a large army in the midst of a
democratic people will always be a source of great danger. The most effectual means of
diminishing that danger would be to reduce the army, but this is a remedy that all nations
are not able to apply.
Return to Documents Relating to American Foreign Policy Before 1898