In Chapter 3, I noted the key developments – the rise of the educated middleclass, the emergence of the free marketplace of ideas, and the birth of a normative difference between state and society – that are responsible for the eventual inability of liberal democracies to win small wars. Still, we know that Western powers continued to fight and win small wars past the turn of the nineteenth century, even though the underlying conditions supporting the use of unbridled violence were continuously eroded. My discussion this far cannot fully explain this period of the twilight of Western capacity to win protracted small wars, for one major reason: In Chapter 3, I discussed only half the story, that which concerned “society.” If one wants to gain a full picture of the forces that shaped the fate of “democratic” small wars, then one also needs to consider the other half of the story: that which concerns the measures that rulers and states took in reaction to social changes and challenges.

Thus, this chapter is devoted to the “state” perspective. Specifically, four issues will be addressed. First, I will briefly discuss, in the abstract, possible institutional reaction to internal challenges. Second, I will review certain developments, most notably in the realm of formal education, that permitted the state to wage war in general and small wars in particular, in spite of the emergence of the normative gap.