Can Military Governments be a good thing (for a while)?

[carl]

Financial problems? Do you men fiscal problems?
What kind of fiscal problems? Why not compare a fledgling autocratic system with a fledgling democratic system?

How could I possibly choose autocracy over democracy because of such a petty topic as money?

Now Fuchs, don't evade the question. Just give it a shot.

[TheCurmudgeon]

He answered the question: There can be no bad Democracy or good Autocracy.

Fiscal (or financial) status, corruption, or any other qualifier is irrelevant.

[Fuchs]

I already answered it.
I'm not going to be lured into supporting autocracy by such a feeble thing as a myopic look at financial matters.

In fact, no-one is going to get me to support autocracy, even if aliens from space told us they will invade in a year and everyone was suddenly convinced that our mobilization would require authoritarian regime.
I am not easily scared or duped.

Besides; autocratic regimes have a horrible track record in economic affairs anyway. An autocratic regime looking good on the economic front is either existing under very lucky circumstances or the observer is merely looking at one side of the coin.

[carl]

I already answered it.
I'm not going to be lured into supporting autocracy by such a feeble thing as a myopic look at financial matters.

In fact, no-one is going to get me to support autocracy, even if aliens from space told us they will invade in a year and everyone was suddenly convinced that our mobilization would require authoritarian regime.
I am not easily scared or duped.

Besides; autocratic regimes have a horrible track record in economic affairs anyway. An autocratic regime looking good on the economic front is either existing under very lucky circumstances or the observer is merely looking at one side of the coin.

Financial matters can be a very big deal, the difference between living and dying even.

Lee Kuan Yew was a bit of an autocrat and Singapore is doing quite well. Red China is rather more than autocratic and they seem to be doing ok. Chile did quite well as did Turkey despite (because of) autocratic military regimes. So maybe it depends sometimes.

[TheCurmudgeon]

From an article entitled "Egypt’s Military: Doing What Germany’s Should Have Done in 1933"

Sudanese writer Al-Hajj Warraq, got it exactly right in an Egyptian television interview last year. He said:

Democracy is about more than just the ballot box. Democracy is a culture engraved upon the cerebral box before it is the ballot box. One cannot talk about freedom in the absence of free minds. The tragedy of the Arab Spring is that when the tyrannical regimes fell, the fruits were reaped by movements that preach closed-mindedness, rather than free thinking. The outcome will be regimes that are worse than those that were toppled.

Apparently, the Egyptian people – at least the 30 million who were in the streets marching against Morsi – agreed with him. Unfortunately, the United States has not.

[TheCurmudgeon]

We are just giving our opinions over here, its not like we stay we want it this way and its going to happen.

I doubt any of us are in a position to carry out a coup and install a military government on our own, but the question does have ramifications in the wider world. For instance, since the end of the Cold War coups conducted by the military or ones that resulted in a military strongman in the presidential palace, even as a transitional government, has been seen as a step backwards. In certain respects this is a PR question, but the ramifications are real since aid can be tied to how Western states approach the new government.

The more direct issue has to do with our own doctrine. If a military government is per se bad, than how can we ever implement a transitional military government? If a military government is "bad" than we can never again do what we did after WWII. In both Germany and Japan there was a military government who ran things for about eight months until it was turned over to civilian administrators. There was no looting; no loss of priceless art, and very little civil unrest as opposed to how we handled Iraq. This is a bit of a separate question, but it is related.

[ccmaximus]

The military have been drivers of modernization in many South American countries, which, after becoming independent from the colonial powers, were mainly ruled by rural landowning regional elites, which intended to keep the agricultural economic basis of their nations.

In the case of Brazil, the Armed Forces were a competing sector within the society which favored industrialization and closer ties with the Western powers.

The Army was reponsible for ending the monarchy in 1889 and, after the Triple Alliance War, played a major part in the abolition of slavery, seeing as they realized a strong Army could only be built from a free society.

Many South American countries were ruled by military regimes during the mid XX century and, although some had their own specific historical reasons for becoming so, the fenomena must also be understood as a part of the contention strategy of the Cold War. Nobody wanted 25 countries styled after Cuba in their backyard.