Leading military analysts predicted that Russia would easily roll over Ukraine in February 2022. They also forecast that any strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities would lead to devastating retaliation and a regionwide war. Now, they tell us that Beijing’s rapid military buildup will make it difficult for the United States and its allies to defeat a Chinese attack on Taiwan.

Leading military analysts predicted that Russia would easily roll over Ukraine in February 2022. They also forecast that any strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities would lead to devastating retaliation and a regionwide war. Now, they tell us that Beijing’s rapid military buildup will make it difficult for the United States and its allies to defeat a Chinese attack on Taiwan.

Are they wrong about this, too?

As Russia and Iran reveal, autocracies have systematic weaknesses that are consistent blind spots for U.S. military analysts. U.S. analysts need to update their belief system to take autocratic vulnerabilities into account so that they can more accurately assess adversary forces and design appropriate strategies for confronting them.

In 2020, I published a book about democracies versus autocracies in great-power rivalries that reviewed cutting-edge social science research and 2,500 years of history. I found that both political systems have strengths and weaknesses but, on balance, democracies are more fit for great-power rivalry and autocr