I was thinking back to Desert Storm, and the fact that, although Iraq lost that war, the Iraqi Government retained power. That led me to wonder: How many times in history has something like this happened?
Apart from that example, every single conflict I can think of that has earned the title War, has ended with the losing side experiencing a change of some kind in the composition of it’s government. Is there one I missed in my admittedly-less-than thorough research? Please advise.
I’m pretty sure the composition of the United Kingdom didn’t change too much after the Treaty of Paris ended the Revolutionary War in 1783.
Zev Steinhardt
It depends if you are talking about wars of conquest or civil wars or wars where a “regime change” is the goal.
In the War of the Pacific (Chile vs Peru and Bolivia in the late 19th century), Chile’s goal was to cut off Bolivia from the sea and they did. But Chile didn’t really want to change the Bolivian and Peruvian governments, although they soon would. It’s not as if goverments friendly to Chile were put in place.
At the end of the Seven Years’ War (which lasted 9 years in North America and was called the French and Indian War), the French lost, but the French monarchy wasn’t affected. The principal losses were French colonies in North America. I think there was the place called Quebec in some weird country called Canada. :dubious:
Hmmm, let’s see. Let’s just look at US wars.
Revolutionary war: British lost, government retains power.
War of 1812: Tie, both sides retain power.
Mexican-American war: Mexico lost, loses northern possesions, government retains power.
Civil War: South lost, goverment falls.
Spanish-American war: Spain lost, loses colonial possesions, government retains power.
WWI: Central powers lost, German government falls, Russian government falls, Austria-Hungarian government falls, Ottoman empire government falls.
WWII: Axis lost, German government falls, Italian government falls, Japanese government falls, whole host of other countries occupied and reorganized and boundaries redrawn.
Korean War: North Korea lost in bid to take over whole peninsula, government retains power.
Vietnam War: US lost, US government retains power (Even if you counted Nixon, he didn’t resign over Vietnam).
Panama: Noriega lost, lost power
Gulf War I: Iraq lost, Saddam retains power.
Afghanistan: Taliban lost, lost power
Gulf War II: Iraq lost, Saddam lost power.
So even counting just these US wars, in 7/13 listed cases the losing government did not lose power.
We can perhaps categorize wars in three ways. Wars between roughly equal powers, where the winner gains some territory or concessions or reparations, but is not strong enough to force anything more sweeping. Wars between strong powers and much weaker powers, where the losing entity becomes a vassal state of the stronger power with a subservient new government, or is annexed completely. And wars between collections of powers, such as WWI, WWII, or the Napoleonic wars, where the winning side is in a position to totally reorganize the political situation in the losing powers and redraw boundaries at will.
But even in one-sided blowouts like the Spanish-American war the losing side doesn’t always or usually face occupation of its capitol and the detention of its rulers. The losing government might fall, not because the winner is installing a new subservient government, but because the population of the losing side is holding government accountable.
In the US-Mexican War, the Mexican government did in fact evaporate, making it extremely hard to find someone to negotiate a truce with.
Looking at England alone, the last government change due to a non-civil war was in 1066. And England has lost quite a few wars in the last <1000 years.
My take on history is the opposite of the OP’s.
Others have pointed out a number of wars in which the governments of both sides remained essentially unchanged.
In most of those wars, the purpose (if you will) of the winning side was not the destruction of the losing government. For instance, the British Colonies of America won, and the British governance of the colonies ended. Similarly, in the Mexican War, the USA won and the Mexican governance of “our” southwest ended.
Maybe you’d like to rephrase the question. Has there ever been a war in which the winning side did not accomplish its primary objective (whatever that may have been)?
(I’ll bet the answer is yes, and the first Gulf War may have been one, because of a miscalculation about the reaction of the Iraqi people.)
That war happened in Kuwait, and repelled invaders. It’s a helluva lot harder to fight folks on their home turf. We sent them BACK to Iraq, we didn’t “leave” someone in power.
They left a big mess in Kuwait on the way out, by the way.
I guess the point I was making was that I was under the impression that the population of most countries that lost a significant war would find their leadership (whether Democratically elected or not) less than satisfactory, and that whoever had been in power at the start of the war (political party or Strongman Dictator) would soon be forced by the population to change in some way, either by stepping down or modifying the existing bylaws to lessen their power. The few examples that I ran across in my head were the losers of WWI and II, and France after Waterloo or the Franco-Prussion war, and I assumed that parliamentary shifts occurred soon after any of England’s war losses, like the Revolution or the Boer War.
However, after reading these posts and reading some online encyclopedia entries, I feel that my original impression - that these instances where the losing side did not lose power were rare - was mistaken.
Thank you all for your input.
The British had a parliamentary shift right before they won World War II
In european wars until the XIX° century, since the ruler was an hereditary king, he wasn’t going to lose power (though there are some instances to the contrary…precisely when the motive of the war was a disagreement about who should reign : wars of succession). And I doubt that the population was that worried about losing the war, as long as said war had finished, and they could be left alone. Patriotism wasn’t big back then, and wars generally the kings’ affairs.
With the XIX° century, nationalism appeared, political unstability became common, different views about what kind of government should be in place appeared, and the citizens began to be more and more involved in the political process. Then, things changed.
By the way, the british didn’t lose the Boer war.
The Vietnam War.
That’s because your original impression was informed by an anachronistic understanding of war. Patriotism, nationalism, and industrialization have transformed major wars in to unconditional contests between nations. Even in modern times, there is a continuum of conflict types, from low-intensity conflict to high-intensity war. The famous aphorism, “War is politics by other means” is especially applicable to Europe before the 19th century.
Hey it was an honorable draw - the US decided it wasn’t worth playing anymore with a bunch of cheaters so took their ball home in a huff. However, the south vietnamese government lost big time about 3 years later.
Another example - Japanese-Russian war 1905
Sparta won the Peloponnesian War. Little good it did them.