Coffee Break: Armed Madhouse – Algeria and Gaza Parallels

Original Report

Military dominance is often treated as strategic insurance. Yet history suggests that battlefield superiority can generate domestic political instability when the moral and reputational costs of...

Military dominance is often treated as strategic insurance. Yet history suggests that battlefield superiority can generate domestic political instability when the moral and reputational costs of sustained force penetrate the patron state’s political system. Examining France in Algeria alongside the contemporary U.S.–Israel alliance, this article argues that the decisive variable is not military capacity but legitimation capacity — the ability of a democratic society to sustain political consent under the burdens of prolonged external conflict.