Democracy’s War Machine: Why popular government breeds endless conflict

The democratic deception – Revealing forgotten alternatives that could save the republic

The ink had barely dried on President Trump’s latest social media proclamation when the real (and “F”) bombs began falling again. “We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don’t know what [the F] they’re doing,” Trump declared Tuesday morning, his frustration palpable as the ceasefire he had brokered between Israel and Iran collapsed within hours.

This isn’t diplomacy but rather the inevitable result of a democratic republic that has abandoned nearly every constitutional restraint on executive war-making and embraced the most dangerous governmental form ever devised for conducting foreign policy.

The scene playing out across our televisions and social media platforms offers a perfect microcosm of democracy’s fatal flaw: the transformation of warfare from a solemn last resort into a tool of political theater.

Within 48 hours, we witnessed Trump order strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities without congressional approval, announce a ceasefire via social media, then publicly rebuke both sides when fighting resumed.

This isn’t statecraft. At hand is the inevitable chaos that emerges when temporary leaders wielding the perpetual power incumbent in their political station treat war as another campaign promise to be broken.

Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s analysis in Democracy: The God That Failed offers the intellectual framework necessary to understand this catastrophe. By characterizing monarchy as “privately-owned government” versus democracy’s “publicly-owned government,” Hoppe illuminated the fundamental incentive structures that make democratic states inherently more prone to foreign adventurism.

The monarch, viewing his realm as capital to be preserved and transmitted to future generations, possesses what economists call “low time preference” —the inclination to sacrifice short-term gains for long-term stability. The democratic politician, by contrast, operates under the opposite incentive: extract maximum benefit during his temporary tenure, regardless of long-term consequences.

This distinction becomes crucial when examining warfare’s economic calculus. Historical evidence demonstrates that monarchs faced significant constraints when attempting to raise taxes to fund war. Monarchs were structurally unable to rally a simple majority’s support for the wartime tax-and-spend practices as today’s democratic leaders do, because their subjects understood that royal wars often served dynastic rather than national interests.

Democratic leaders, however, can manipulate popular sentiment to fund conflicts through what some pundits term “fiscal patriotism” —the phenomenon whereby citizens willingly accept wartime taxation as their patriotic duty. This mechanism allowed neoconservative elites to rally Americans into (initially) backing decades of foreign adventurism—from Desert Shield to the ongoing wars in the Middle East following September 11^th—despite the demonstrably disastrous long-term results.

The military-industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned against in 1961 simply could not exist under monarchical constraints. Kings faced what political scientists call “commitment problems” with their generals—an inability to credibly promise rewards for military success without risking their own overthrow.

Such constraints created beneficial stalemates that prevented large-scale conscription and relatively limited military adventures. Democratic systems, by contrast, excel at military delegation precisely because elected leaders and professional military officers often share similar incentives: career advancement through successful warfare.

Consider the stark difference in warfare patterns. Research confirms that so-called democracies indeed “win” more of the wars they engage in and win them more quickly. Such regimes also tend to pay lower costs than their autocratic enemies.

But this statistical “advantage” obscures a crucial question: What constitutes victory when the stakes perpetually escalate?

Democracies may win individual conflicts, but they create conditions for endless warfare by maintaining standing armies, intractable “defense” contracts, and foreign commitments that require constant justification through military action.

The American Founders understood these dangers when they crafted the Constitution’s war powers. Article I, Section 8 grants Congress—not the executive—the exclusive authority to declare war. James Madison observed that “the constitution supposes, what the History of all Governments demonstrates, that the Executive is the branch of power most interested in war, and most prone to it.”

The Founding Fathers feared executives who could unilaterally commit the nation to conflict, having witnessed how British monarchs had waged costly wars for dynastic glory.

Yet since World War II, every American president has ignored this constitutional requirement. Harry Truman initiated the Korean conflict without congressional declaration, establishing the precedent that executives could wage “police actions” and “limited interventions” without legislative approval.

From Vietnam to Libya, from Panama to Afghanistan, American forces have fought in dozens of conflicts authorized only by presidential decree. The War Powers Resolution of 1973 attempted to restore constitutional balance, but presidents of both parties have treated it as an unconstitutional limitation on executive authority.

Trump’s bombing campaign in Iran exemplifies this constitutional vandalism. Congressional leaders were not properly consulted, foreign allies may have received advance notification before American legislators, and the entire operation proceeded without the slightest pretense of legislative authorization.

Like clockwork, liberal Representative Al Green (D-Texas) has once again filed articles of impeachment, correctly noting this time that “at no time did Iran present any imminent danger to the United States.” The Constitution’s war powers have become what some critics have aptly termed “parchment promises” —meaningless constraints ignored whenever politically convenient.

The American system represents a historical aberration, not democratic evolution. The Founders chose federalism as a compromise between the weakness of the Articles of Confederation and what they perceived as British monarchical tyranny. But their rejection of monarchy stemmed from experience with the post-Reformation British system—possibly the worst example of effective monarchical governance in European history. The British Crown had already devolved into the centralized tyranny that would later characterize modern democratic states.

Proper monarchical systems, particularly those influenced by Catholic social teaching, operated on subsidiarity principles that dispersed power downward rather than concentrating it centrally. Medieval guilds, local nobility, and regional authorities maintained significant autonomy under monarchical oversight. The principle of subsidiarity—that decisions should be made at the lowest competent level of authority—flourished under authentic monarchical governance in ways that democratic centralization has systematically destroyed.

Consider the contrast with contemporary American federalism. The Constitution explicitly prohibits titles of nobility while simultaneously creating the world’s most powerful unitary executive. We replaced hereditary aristocracy with what might be called “meritocratic aristocracy” —Ivy League-educated technocrats who rotate between government service, corporate boardrooms, and think tank sinecures. This managerial class operates the machinery of democratic warfare with ruthless efficiency, unconstrained by the long-term thinking that limited monarchical adventurism.

The economic incentives prove particularly revealing. Monarchs had to consider war’s impact on their realm’s long-term capital value. Destroying productive capacity or disrupting trade relationships directly diminished royal wealth.

Democratic leaders face opposite incentives: military spending stimulates favored constituencies, defense contracts reward political supporters, and foreign conflicts distract from domestic failures. The warfare state becomes a permanent feature of democratic governance rather than an emergency exception.

While relying on the “NAXALT fallacy,” some will nevertheless object that “not all kings” exhibited the low time preference that theory suggests. Historical examples like Eric VI of Denmark—a central figure in his kingdom’s “Age of Decay” —demonstrate that individual monarchs could pursue destructive short-term policies. But these exceptions prove the rule: when monarchs violated long-term thinking, their kingdoms suffered accordingly, and the dynastic system provided internal correction mechanisms.

Democratic systems institutionalize short-term thinking by design, rewarding politicians who maximize immediate benefits regardless of future costs.

The managerial state that characterizes modern American governance represents democracy’s logical endpoint. Professional bureaucrats and military officers develop institutional interests in perpetual conflict, while elected officials provide democratic cover for their preferences.

Citizens around the globe are now propagandized into believing democracies naturally possess superior leadership, initiative, and military logistics compared to those more autocratic systems. But what appears as democratic efficiency is merely the triumph of technocratic governance over popular control.

Rural Americans understand this instinctively. They provide the soldiers for democratic wars while urban elites provide the justification.

Agricultural communities with generational land-ownership patterns naturally develop long-term thinking that conflicts with the short-term outlook of democracy. The tension between rural property interests and urban democratic majorities reflects deeper disagreements about the timeframes in governance and territorial responsibilities.

Might it not prove wiser to separate rural interests from the ideological corruption that emanates from American universities and urban centers?

On both the political left and the cultural right, there exists a large-scale “secession of the heart” — in contrast with a territorial cleaving that tore America asunder in the 1860s. This notion characterizes the position of many in contemporary America and reflects a fundamental division in both politics and culture.

Millions of Americans have lost faith in democratic institutions yet have not embraced any practical alternatives. Importantly, however, they recognize that democracy has devolved into what Hoppe called “publicly-owned government” —a system where temporary political coalitions can plunder future generations through debt-financed warfare and domestic spending.

It is often remarked that where there is no solution, there is no problem.

Americans can find a way out this time, however. The challenge facing the nation is that this solution requires a process that—by its nature—must be slow, deliberate, and serious.

Constitutional restoration requires acknowledging democracy’s inherent limitations rather than treating them as temporary aberrations. The war powers were designed to prevent precisely the executive militarism that has characterized American foreign policy since 1945. Congressional authority over military deployment was not a bureaucratic nicety but a fundamental protection against the imperial presidency that democratic systems naturally generate.

State sovereignty offers the most practical path forward. The Tenth Amendment reserves powers not granted to the federal government to states and the people. This principle could limit federal war-making by forcing meaningful debate about the constitutional basis of American military commitments. States that refuse to provide National Guard units for unauthorized foreign interventions could restore the legislative check that presidents routinely ignore.

The promise of Federalism lies not in democratic participation but in competitive governance. States that embrace the principles of subsidiarity—devolving authority to county and municipal levels—could demonstrate alternatives to centralized democratic management. Local communities with stable populations and property-based civic participation naturally develop the long-term thinking that democratic systems systematically discourage.

The Catholic influence upon Western civilization offers historical precedent for such arrangements. Medieval political theory understood that authority derived from divine ordination rather than popular consent, creating obligations that transcended immediate political advantage. Kings ruled under divine judgment, nobility served hereditary responsibilities, and local communities maintained customary autonomy. This system produced centuries of relative peace compared to the industrial-scale warfare that democratic nationalism has unleashed.

Modern Americans need not embrace monarchical restoration to benefit from monarchical insights. The principle of subsidiarity can operate within republican frameworks provided we abandon democratic mythology about popular sovereignty. True republicanism recognizes that governance requires wisdom, continuity, and long-term thinking—qualities that democratic election cycles systematically discourage.

The stakes are indeed high, however. Trump’s Iranian adventure demonstrates how democratic war-making operates: presidential tweets substitute for diplomatic protocols, social media announcements replace constitutional procedures, and military action serves domestic political theater rather than national strategy.

This represents the complete breakdown of republican governance under democratic pressures. What, then, distinguishes a republic from a democracy?

In a republic, it is understood that the popular will requires institutional mediation through structures designed to encourage deliberation and prevent faction. Putting one’s chips all-in to favor a democracy, on the other hand, means that the popular will must translate directly into governmental action.

The Founders chose republican forms precisely because they feared democratic tyranny—including the tyranny of temporary majorities that could commit future generations to perpetual warfare.

We face a civilizational choice disguised as a policy debate. Either Americans will restore constitutional limits on executive war-making and embrace subsidiarity principles that disperse power downward, or we will continue the democratic experiment until its internal contradictions produce complete systemic collapse.

The warfare state represents democracy’s logical conclusion: a system where temporary political coalitions can commit permanent resources to advance transient objectives.

The answer lies not in better democratic procedures but in limiting democracy’s scope. Foreign policy, military deployment, and constitutional interpretation should not be subject to popular majorities any more than property rights are. These fundamental questions require the long-term thinking that democratic systems inherently discourage but that civilized governance absolutely demands.

In the ruins of Trump’s failed ceasefire, we glimpse democracy’s future: perpetual conflict managed by technocratic experts and legitimized by popular ignorance. The choice remains ours, but time grows short.

Either we will rediscover the wisdom that made constitutional republicanism possible, or we will learn through bitter experience why previous civilizations abandoned democracy as the most dangerous form of government ever attempted by fallen men.