Quote Originally Posted by gaelic cowboy View Post
We only have WW2 etc to go on but the thinking is a democray is usually not as well prepared for industrial scale warfare as say fascism or communism in early stages. The problem for autocrats is people who dissent are ignored or worse so you end up with no one saying "Mein Furher an invasion of the Soviet Union will fail" everyone ends up a yesman. Also intelligence agencies of autocratic regimes are better at internal security than at disrupting the enemy a crucial part of warfare today and the autocrats tend to watch each other to ensure there quids in with the Leader and not the enemy
The problem isn't so much the yes men, the problem is a little more complex.

In a dictatorship, when you think of a great plan, you do it.

In a democracy, when you think of a great plan, some other guy will say "no that plan suck monkey testicles!". This reaction will make you look over your plan once more, working a little more on it, making it a little better.

following your hitler example:
Hitler thought of a great invasion plan of the Soviet Union, and so he did.

If he had been living in a democracy, somebody would've pointed out how retarded that plan was, and Hitler would've been forced to look at it again, thus noticing the glaring logistic errors it contained, fixed it and rid the world of smelly commies once and for all!'

Compare the differences in planning of d-day with operation barbarossa, and note which one was succesful....