Why dictators lose wars

A 2011 book kind of predicted Putin's troubles in Ukraine.

The original title of this post was “why Putin is (probably) losing,” but I decided not to tempt fate. Unfortunately, there are some possible signs that Russia is learning from its early mistakes and adjusting its tactics accordingly, with potentially devastating consequences for the people of Ukraine.

This war definitely hasn’t gone the way the Russians planned it, though. Kyiv was supposed to have fallen by now. And The Dictator’s Handbook, a thought-provoking book released eleven years before Putin decided to retake Ukraine for the motherland, predicted this might happen.

Written by Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith, The Dictator’s Handbook makes the provocative argument that dictators and democratically elected leaders are guided by the same principle:

Bruce Bueno de Mesquita and Alastair Smith's canonical book on political science turned conventional wisdom on its head. They started from a single assertion: Leaders do whatever keeps them in power. They don't care about the "national interest"-or even their subjects-unless they have to.

This clever and accessible book shows that democracy is essentially just a convenient fiction. Governments do not differ in kind but only in the number of essential supporters, or backs that need scratching. The size of this group determines almost everything about politics: what leaders can get away with, and the quality of life or misery under them. The picture the authors paint is not pretty. But it just may be the truth, which is a good starting point for anyone seeking to improve human governance.

Democrats, of course, have to get elected and maintain support from a much larger coalition of people than do dictators. We talk about “one-man” rule in countries like North Korea - or, increasingly, Russia - but even the strictest tyrants have at least some people he must keep on side or risk dying by suicide.

Suicide by several shots to the back of the head, that is.

The USSR had Communist Party officials who lived high on the hog while ordinary people queued for hours to buy whatever was left in mostly empty shops, and as we saw in the country’s final year of existence, some resorted to extreme measures to stay on top.

That attempted coup failed, but many of these same Communists proved surprisingly adept at crony capitalism, and became ridiculously wealthy in the post-Soviet years. They may not have political power anymore, but being able to buy giant yachts, Premier League clubs and Formula One racing careers for your marginally talented sons makes up for a lot.

Dmitri Alperovitch @DAlperovitch

One way that the West could increase likelihood of this outcome is to enact sanctions on more members of the intelligence services and the military further down the chain, as well as their families. Eg. General officers and even colonels https://t.co/Bwb0JJAK2R

Dmitri Alperovitch @DAlperovitch

For the first time in 22 years, I am actually starting to believe that Putin’s hold on power may be on shaky ground. Not because of some Plpeople’s uprising—that’s a fanciful dream—but because there is now a small but non-zero chance of a palace coup 🧵

When the dictator becomes more trouble than he’s worth for the small number of people keeping him in power, his time might be up. Russian oligarchs are now starting to feel some pain from devastating sanctions imposed on their country - some of them specifically targeted at them by name - and when you find your assets frozen and your favorite vacation spots cut off, you have to wonder if it’s all been worth it.

If I can’t visit my Italian villa next to George and Amal’s place, then what’s this been all about?

More importantly for this news cycle, The Dictator’s Handbook makes a strong argument that, for all their public shows of strength, authoritarian governments actually have a pretty lousy track record fighting wars:

Our view of politics instructs us to anticipate that leaders who depend on lots of essential backers only fight when they believe victory is nearly certain. Otherwise, they look for ways to resolve their international differences peacefully. Leaders who rely on only a few essential supporters, in contrast, are prepared to fight even when the odds of winning are not particularly good. Democratic leaders try hard to win if the going gets tough. Autocrats make a good initial effort, and if that proves wanting, they quit. These strategies are clearly in evidence when we consider the Six-Day War in 1967.

Egypt had a much larger military than Israel, but with its government in accountable to voters or kept in check by independent media, it cheapened out and treated Egyptian soldiers as disposable cannon fodder. Why spend money for better body armour when that will divert funds from the important Mercedes-Benz S-Class limo budget?