ABSTRACT
Democracies find themselves torn between the conflicting goals of building a viable defense while constraining costs and accommodating other public goods and needs in times of peace. In democracies, institutional rules and norms guide domestic policy decisions and they affect external and security affairs as well. Even when push comes to shove, a set of rules and norms of appropriate democratic behavior constrains and guides the use of force. Democratic armed forces operate in modern-day military missions under normative restrictions that derive from democratic self-perception and the institutional settings of democracies. Taken together, these liberal democratic norms have a profound effect on shaping the nature of democracies’ military strategies: win quickly, avoid casualties, reduce collateral damage, and preserve the adversaries’ infrastructure.
