Democracies are only as good as the people who comprise them. Yet even then, citizens often have limited control over foreign policy decisions that profoundly shape their lives. Decisions about war are usually made by the upper echelons of the state (executive leaders, national security officials, and military planners) rather than by the public directly. The people do not vote on whether to go to war, even though such decisions may be unavoidable and can come at tremendous cost to their civil liberties at home.
For example, neither American nor Soviet citizens had any meaningful say in their governments’ decisions to invade Afghanistan. One was a communist dictatorship and the other is a liberal democracy.
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Democracies are only as good as the people who comprise them. Yet even then, citizens often have limited control over foreign policy decisions that profoundly shape their lives. Decisions about war are usually made by the upper echelons of the state (executive leaders, national security officials, and military planners) rather than by the public directly. The people do not vote on whether to go to war, even though such decisions may be unavoidable and can come at tremendous cost to their civil liberties at home.
For example, neither American nor Soviet citizens had any meaningful say in their governments’ decisions to invade Afghanistan. One was a communist dictatorship and the other is a liberal democracy.