Why is a democracy actually better at organizing for war than a dictatorship?

Answer 1

It is not clear that is the case. Historically,often the Dictatorship has been better prepared for war then democracies. Democracies often fail to prepare for war, because they erroneously believe that the preparation will encourage war. The prevailing thought for the last century, is that democracies are far less likely to start wars than dictatorships. Usually those that start wars are better prepared than those that don't start wars.

Answer 2

There is no historical basis for saying, as does this question, that democratic type governments are better than dictatorships in organizing for war. In the 20th Century, the best example of a dictatorship being able to organize for war was Nazi Germany. Sadly, when the Nazi's took control of Germany in 1933, it was able to organize a substantial fighting force in less then six years. For in September of 1939, it, along with the Soviet Union, began World War 2. The six year period is mentioned in that prior to 1933, Germany had a rather small military organization.

Using a similar period of time, it can also be said that in a relatively short time, the United States was able to organize a large military force. It became able to confront, with the help of its allies, the enemy called the Axis Powers, and fight a two front war. One main reason for this was not so much as it was a democratic country. Primarily, the US was separated by the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans from its main enemies of Germany and Japan. This allowed the US to be free from a homeland invasion and use its large population and private industry to build war supplies and man large armies.