related to the size of the country. "Do larger countries have longer
crisis wars than smaller countries, due to the time it would take to
muster armies and conquer different regions?"
There's no simple answer to this question, but here are some
considerations:
- Civil wars and external wars usually work differently
- Wars, expecially civil wars, can go on for decades as low-level
violence before finally exploding and reaching a climax. - The Rwanda civil war ran at a low level for years, then exploded
within three months. - Somalia is a very big country, but the war was focused in
Mogadishu, and climaxed there, so the size of the country was
irrelevant compared to the size of the war theatre. - CAR is a huge country and peacekeepers have been struggling to
separate the sides in the capital city Bangui, but the tribal violence
continues across the country, far out of reach of the peacekeepers. - An external war is different, in that its fought by
state-controlled armies, and depends on popular politics during the
war. - External wars go through a process that lasts 4-5 years. At the
beginning of an external war, it's extremely popular, and the "rules
of war" are followed. As time goes on, the population become
war-weary, and there are calls to end the war. - Once setbacks occur, the population panic, the war becomes more
genocidal, as the war has to be won no matter what the cost in money
and blood. - Towards the end, the value of an individual human life goes to
zero, and each side tries to win the war through any means possible.
The war climaxes with an explosion that both winner and loser regret.
This happens irrespective of the sizes of the countries.