It's pretty much a military dictature, with a few relents of democracy for caring about civilian matters.
You are literally making this up. Simply because the game deals with the military aspects and so that's all we see does not mean the GTVA is a military dictatorship.
You have utterly failed to appreciate the fact that the games do not provide an omniscient viewpoint.
That's not entirely true. Although it is by no means a dictatorship (as civilian contentment and public opinion is clearly important to the GTVA), the GTVA IS partly run by the military. Even if we look only at the FS and FS2 universe, we see that the military is considerably more involved in the day to day working of the GTVA than your average form of government, with the military making up a full third of the political system of the GTVA (alongside the Vasudan Imperium and the General Assembly). Aside from this, the military is often seen taking on the role of a police force as well, which means the military plays a much greater role in the GTVA than in any ordinary government.
If you wish to delve into the BP canon, when you read up on the profile of Steele, you'll even notice that he was educated in a 'Space War College' that expressly deals with military courses, such as Bachelors in 'Battlefield Psychology' and Masters in 'Strategic Studies', with treatises written on military matters such as warship design. This implies by far, a much greater degree of militarism than any nation we've ever seen on Earth, if there are recognized graduate and post graduate degrees in, essentially, how to wage war. Furthermore, it is said that the decision to invade Sol was made by the security council, which is the military branch of the GTVA. This is important as it means the military declared war all on it's own without the need to answer to some higher civilian power. So the security council has a very large degree of autonomy in how to operate on matters regarding security, and doesn't seem to have to directly answer to a civilian regulatory body (although it does seem to have to answer to public opinion to a limited degree, perhaps candidates for the security council are somehow elected by the public). It's probably not so much a case of the military running the GTVA as the rampant militarism present throughout it making it seem that way.
Which leads me to this.
The fact that it's taken the GTVA as long as it already has to make headway against a vastly inferior foe, on top of the flurry of defections from the 14th, is probably making them look pretty weak already. The Battle of Saturn was probably something of a propaganda victory, but even with the destruction of a rather infamous UEF unit, the Carthage is badly damaged and many of her escorts were destroyed. It feels like a defeat from the perspective of the player because we lose a lot of characters we've come to know and like, but seen from the other side the Imperieuse arrives to bail Lopez's ass out of the fire with about thirty seconds to spare, and not before several thousand GTVA officers and crew have died. In an asymmetric war-of-choice like this one, any military victory short of an overwhelming one can look bad.
Why does this always come up.....
The UEF is anything BUT a "vastly inferior foe". The UEF fleet is, in terms of firepower, roughly equivalent to 4 or 5 GTVA battlegroups. Prior to Steele's arrival and the battle of Artemis Station, the GTVA was fighting against an enemy that was always one step ahead due to the subspace sensor net enveloping Sol, thus negating one of the biggest factors in FS warfare. Yes, the UEF navy was hampered by Byrne's indecision and by not having as deep a personnel pool as the GTVA, but still, it is definitely not a foe to be underestimated.
Why is this the accepted consensus? For the love of me i cannot understand why a civilization which is both technologically and numerically disadvantaged as well as suffering from VASTLY inferior training, experience and war mentality is achieving such ridiculous kill ratios in all engagements that we see. The discrepancy in the combat prowess should so vast that aside from a considerable numerical superiority, or a substantial tactical advantage (something not likely to happen considering the superior training and experience of the GTVA commanders), the UEF should be horrifically losing all battles involving capships, but instead we see the exact opposite, such as 4 frigates and 2 cruisers taking on 4 corvettes, 4 cruisers and a destroyer with ZERO losses (delanda est). That particular mission made me want to tear my hair out and the part that made me happiest during the whole thing, was watching the Imperiuse and the escorting corvette rip through the attacking fleet, because it's the ONLY part in the whole damn mission that made any shred of sense (amusingly, the force you're deployed against at the start, is more than capable of tearing apart the Imperiuse and the escort corvette assuming they all start in range).
A frigate is roughly the same mass as a corvette (they're longer, but much slimmer), but has some of its space and personnel taken up by a fighter bay and maintenance facilities, so you'd assume it wouldn't perform as well in a direct combat role as a corvette. If you then factor in the inferior weapons and reactor tech of the UEF compared to the GTVA, you're left with the logical assumption that a UEF frigate should be decisively outgunned by a TEV corvette (which isn't true in the slightest, and we see Karunas packing an insane 29(!!!!) turrets). And yet, we don't see a single mission in which this happens like it actually should except at the very end of delanda est. In the mission before that, we see an Orion with full fighter complement run away from 2 Karunas approaching it in an optimal broadside position for the Orion, yet strangely the Orion jumped out? Even ignoring the fact that the weapons, armor and jump drive on the Carthage were said to be upgraded, the frigates were approaching from an angle that would have seen them in range of 2 BGreens and 2 TerSlash beams, which should quickly reduce both ships into flaming hulks. If we replaced those Karunas with Deimos corvettes, although the Orion would take substantial damage, the plan would be considered doomed to failure. So why are ships with less powerful weaponry seemingly performing better against a souped up version of a ship which would ordinarily kill a pair of Deimos. This puzzles me beyond all belief, as the game texts say one thing, which seems logical and believable, yet what we see in-game is the exact opposite and makes no sense whatsoever.
Tl;Dr: Peace loving hippies with inferior tech are somehow performing ridiculously well against a higher tech society, geared for war, with nearly a century of constant warfare to hone their skills, weapons and ship designs. Wtf
