Skip to main content
Revolutions

Appendix 8- Wars Both Foreign and Domestic

22 min episode · 2 min read

Episode

22 min

Read time

2 min

Topics

Relationships, Science & Discovery, Economics & Policy

AI-Generated Summary

Key Takeaways

  • Civil War Typology: All revolutions involve two types of domestic conflict—wars between revolutionary factions after unity collapses, and battles against restorationist groups seeking to restore the old regime. These conflicts typically occur simultaneously and feed into each other.
  • Foreign Intervention Motives: Neighboring powers rarely invade to restore ousted monarchs; instead they pursue strategic interests in resources, trade relationships, and regional influence. The United States shifted support between Mexican revolutionary leaders based on commercial and political interests, not ideology.
  • Revolutionary Expansionism: Revolutionaries often initiate foreign wars themselves rather than defending against invasion. French Jacobins pushed for war in 1791-1792 to spread their empire of liberty, while the Red Army marched west to expand communist revolution toward Germany.
  • Military Mobilization Effects: Revolutionary epochs dramatically increase the number of people under arms compared to old regimes, creating upward mobility opportunities for talented soldiers. This produces new leaders like Napoleon and Washington while generating resentment over conscription and requisitions among common people.

What It Covers

Revolutionary wars follow predictable patterns: civil conflicts between revolutionary factions and restorationist forces occur simultaneously, while foreign powers intervene based on strategic interests rather than ideological opposition to revolution itself.

Key Questions Answered

  • Civil War Typology: All revolutions involve two types of domestic conflict—wars between revolutionary factions after unity collapses, and battles against restorationist groups seeking to restore the old regime. These conflicts typically occur simultaneously and feed into each other.
  • Foreign Intervention Motives: Neighboring powers rarely invade to restore ousted monarchs; instead they pursue strategic interests in resources, trade relationships, and regional influence. The United States shifted support between Mexican revolutionary leaders based on commercial and political interests, not ideology.
  • Revolutionary Expansionism: Revolutionaries often initiate foreign wars themselves rather than defending against invasion. French Jacobins pushed for war in 1791-1792 to spread their empire of liberty, while the Red Army marched west to expand communist revolution toward Germany.
  • Military Mobilization Effects: Revolutionary epochs dramatically increase the number of people under arms compared to old regimes, creating upward mobility opportunities for talented soldiers. This produces new leaders like Napoleon and Washington while generating resentment over conscription and requisitions among common people.

Notable Moment

The 1830 French Revolution avoided international war specifically because Louis Philippe replaced one Bourbon with another. A republic or Bonaparte restoration would have triggered immediate military response from European powers who feared those outcomes meant inevitable conflict.

Know someone who'd find this useful?

Episode Transcript

Holidays mean feasting. From cheddar biscuits to French toast bakes, Hero Bread has you covered with zero to five grams net carb and high fiber options to ensure your holidays stay delicious and balanced. Like their three grams net carb pan au chocolat, hero bread is offering 10% off your order. Go to hero.co and use code fall twenty five at checkout. That's fall twenty five at hero.co. All figures are per serving of hero bread, contains up to 17 grams of fat per serving. See the product nutrition panels on hero.co for more information. Hello, and welcome to Revolutions. Appendix eight, wars both foreign and domestic. Last time, we discussed a nearly universal characteristic that follows any successful revolution, and that's the entropy of victory. Today, we're gonna talk about another near universal characteristic that follows a successful revolution and that is war. Now, we know that in normal times, war is the continuation of politics by other means. This goes double in a revolutionary moment when all the old rules and norms and laws of politics have collapsed anyway. Violence has already entered the picture as a viable and justifiable means to political ends, so it's not much of a leap for a full blown war to break out as a direct consequence of the revolution. So what we're gonna do today is break down the types and categories of revolutionary wars, both civil and international, because though war itself may be a constant, the particulars depend very much on time, place, and circumstance. Now first, let's talk about domestic wars, civil wars. One thing that became very clear to me in making this podcast is that all revolutions are civil wars. It is always and everywhere the case in a revolution that at least two sides are contesting sovereign power using force. The preponderance of force stage of the revolution is by its very nature a civil war. Now this is true whether it's armies on a battlefield or street fighting around barricades. So technically, civil war has already entered the picture thanks to the contest over the preponderance of force, but we've already talked about that. What we're here to talk about today are the kinds of conflicts that happened after that phase. Whether that phase took three days or three years or three decades, it resulted in revolutionary victory. And what happened after revolutionary victory is what we're here to talk about. Now, there are two broad categories of civil war that follow revolutionary victory. One is wars between revolutionary factions, now that the entropy of victory has broken their unity. The other kind is wars between the revolutionary regime and some restorationist group fighting to bring back the Ancien regime. Typically, these two types of civil war are gonna be happening simultaneously, driving into each other and feeding off of each other because we would hate for anything to be simple and uncomplicated. Now to take the second of these types first, in any …

Get the full transcript (3,857 words) + summary by email — free

One-time email with the complete transcript and AI summary of this episode. No account needed.

One email, no spam. We’ll also show you what SignalCast does.

Browse all Revolutions transcripts →

You just read a 3-minute summary of a 19-minute episode.

Get Revolutions summarized like this every Monday — plus up to 2 more podcasts, free.

Pick Your Podcasts — Free

Keep Reading

More from Revolutions

We summarize every new episode. Want them in your inbox?

Similar Episodes

Related episodes from other podcasts

Explore Related Topics

This podcast is featured in Best History Podcasts (2026) — ranked and reviewed with AI summaries.

You're clearly into Revolutions.

Every Monday, we deliver AI summaries of the latest episodes from Revolutions and 192+ other podcasts. Free for one show.

Start My Monday Digest

No credit card · Unsubscribe anytime