Philip bobbitt the shield of achilles war, p ory (v5 0)

Otte, The Times Literary Supplement ‘Bobbitt's book is in many ways a remarkable one… breathtaking in its range of reference, forcefully written' David Runciman, London Review of Books ‘

PENGUIN BOOKSTHE SHIELD OF ACHILLES

‘Wide-ranging, ambitiously conceived and intelligently argued… Bobbitt's future scenarios arebased on an intelligent and cautiously realistic extrapolation of current security and political

developments We ignore them at our peril' T G Otte, The Times Literary Supplement

‘Bobbitt's book is in many ways a remarkable one… breathtaking in its range of reference,

forcefully written' David Runciman, London Review of Books

‘Bobbitt's thesis is controversial – but backed by a weight of historical evidence' Will Hutton,

Observer

‘The world has changed… This is a bold book, a brave book, and a worthy primer for the essential

study of where we go from here' Allan Mallinson, The Times

‘A polemic that challenges the fabric of all modern states' Angelique Chrisafis, Guardian

‘Philip Bobbitt is to be saluted for undertaking an epic struggle to sort through an extraordinarily

dynamic time in international affairs' Thomas Donnelly, Washington Post

‘This book is immensely and deliberately provocative… a passionate and worthy effort to make

sense of what is clearly a brand new world' Christopher Willcox, New York Sun

‘It is hard to imagine a book by a law professor that has had more immediate impact on world

leaders… if you ever wonder what works from our era will be read as The Prince or Leviathan are

read, think of The Shield of Achilles' Dennis Patterson, Michigan Law Review

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Philip Bobbitt served as a senior adviser at the White House, the Senate and the State Department,and held several senior posts at the National Security Council, including Director for Intelligence andmost recently as the Senior Director for Strategic Planning, in both Democratic and Republicanadministrations He holds the Walker Chair in constitutional law at the University of Texas He hasbeen Anderson Senior Research Fellow at Nuffield College, where he was a member of the OxfordModern History Faculty, and Marsh Christian Senior Fellow in War Studies at King's College,London He has written previous books on nuclear strategy, social choice and constitutional law Helives in Austin, Washington and London

THE SHIELD OF ACHILLES

WAR, PEACE AND THE COURSE OF HISTORY

PHILIP BOBBITT

PENGUIN BOOKS

PENGUIN BOOKS

Published by the Penguin GroupPenguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, EnglandPenguin Putnam Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USAPenguin Books Australia Ltd, 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, AustraliaPenguin Books Canada Ltd, 10 Alcorn Avenue, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4V 3B2

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Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

Copyright © Philip Bobbitt, 2002

All rights reserved

The moral right of the author has been asserted

The acknowledgements on pp 921 – 2 constitute an extension of this copyright page

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, byway of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher'sprior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a

similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser

ISBN: 978-0-14-193794-6

To those by whose love God's grace was first made known to me

and

to those whose loving-kindness has ever since sustained me in His care.

Foreword, by Sir Michael Howard

Prologue

BOOK I: STATE OF WAR

Introduction: Law, Strategy, and History

PART I: THE LONG WAR OF THE NATION-STATE

1 Thucydides and the Epochal War

2 The Struggle Begun: Fascism, Communism, Parliamentarianism, 1914 – 1919

3 The Struggle Continued: 1919 – 1945

4 The Struggle Ended: 1945 – 1990

PART II: A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE MODERN STATE AND ITS CONSTITUTIONAL

ORDERS

5 Strategy and the Constitutional Order

6 From Princes to Princely States: 1494 – 1648

7 From Kingly States to Territorial States: 1648 – 1776

8 From State-Nations to Nation-States: 1776 – 1914

9 The Study of the Modern State

PART III: THE HISTORIC CONSEQUENCES OF THE LONG WAR

10 The Market-State

11 Strategic Choices

12 Strategy and the Market-State

13 The Wars of the Market-State: Conclusion to Book I

Plates I – V

BOOK II: STATES OF PEACE

Introduction: The Origin of International Law in the Constitutional Order

PART I: THE SOCIETY OF NATION-STATES

14 Colonel House and a World Made of Law

15 The Kitty Genovese Incident and the War in Bosnia

16 The Death of the Society of Nation-States

PART II: A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE SOCIETY OF STATES AND THE INTERNATIONAL

ORDER

17 Peace and the International Order

18 The Treaty of Augsburg

19 The Peace of Westphalia

20 The Treaty of Utrecht

21 The Congress of Vienna

22 The Versailles Treaty

23 The Peace of Paris

PART III: THE SOCIETY OF MARKET-STATES

24 Challenges to the New International Order

25 Possible Worlds

26 The Coming Age of War and Peace

27 Peace in the Society of Market-States: Conclusion to Book II

The Iliad

(Book XVIII, lines 558 – 720)

And first Hephaestus makes a great and massive shield,

blazoning well-wrought emblems all across its surface,

raising a rim around it, glittering, triple-ply

with a silver shield-strap run from edge to edge

and five layers of metal to build the shield itself,

and across its vast expanse with all his craft and cunning

the god creates a world of gorgeous immortal work.

There he made the earth and there the sky and the sea

and the inexhaustible blazing sun and the moon rounding full and there the constellations, all that crown the heavens,

the Pleiades and the Hyades, Orion in all his power too

and the Great Bear that mankind also calls the Wagon:

she wheels on her axis always fixed, watching Orion,

and she alone is denied a plunge in the Ocean's baths.

And he forged on the shield two noble cities filled

with mortal men With weddings and wedding feasts in one

and under glowing torches they brought forth the brides

from the women's chambers, marching through the streets

while choir on choir the wedding song rose high

and the young men came dancing, whirling round in rings

and among them the flutes and harps kept up their stirring call — women rushed to the doors and each stood moved with wonder And the people massed, streaming into the marketplace

where a quarrel had broken out and two men struggled

over the blood-price for a kinsman just murdered.

One declaimed in public, vowing payment in full—

the other spurned him, he would not take a thing—

so both men pressed for a judge to cut the knot.

The crowd cheered on both, they took both sides,

but heralds held them back as the city elders sat

on polished stone benches, forming the sacred circle,

grasping in hand the staffs of clear-voiced heralds,

and each leapt to his feet to plead the case in turn.

Two bars of solid gold shone on the ground before them,

a prize for the judge who'd speak the straightest verdict.

But circling the other city camped a divided army

gleaming in battle-gear, and two plans split their ranks:

to plunder the city or share the riches with its people,

hoards the handsome citadel stored within its depths.

But the people were not surrendering, not at all.

They armed for a raid, hoping to break the siege—

loving wives and innocent children standing guard

on the ramparts, flanked by elders bent with age

as men marched out to war Ares and Pallas led them,

both burnished gold, gold the attire they donned, and great, magnificent in their armor—gods for all the world,

looming up in their brilliance, towering over troops.

And once they reached the perfect spot for attack,

a watering place where all the herds collected,

there they crouched, wrapped in glowing bronze.

Detached from the ranks, two scouts took up their posts,

the eyes of the army waiting to spot a convoy,

the enemy's flocks and crook-horned cattle coming…

Come they did, quickly, two shepherds behind them,

playing their hearts out on their pipes—treachery

never crossed their minds But the soldiers saw them,

rushed them, cut off at a stroke the herds of oxen

and sleek sheep-flocks glistening silver-gray

and killed the herdsmen too Now the besiegers,

soon as they heard the uproar burst from the cattle

as they debated, huddled in council, mounted at once

behind their racing teams, rode hard to the rescue,

arrived at once, and lining up for assault

both armies battled it out along the river banks—

they raked each other with hurtling bronze-tipped spears:

And Strife and Havoc plunged in the fight, and violent Death— now seizing a man alive with fresh wounds, now one unhurt, now hauling a dead man through the slaughter by the heels, the cloak on her back stained red with human blood.

So they clashed and fought like living, breathing men

grappling each other's corpses, dragging off the dead.

And he forged a fallow field, broad rich plowland

tilled for the third time, and across it crews of plowmen

wheeled their teams, driving them up and back and soon

as they'd reach the end-strip, moving into the turn,

a man would run up quickly

and hand them a cup of honeyed, mellow wine

as the crews would turn back down along the furrows,

pressing again to reach the end of the deep fallow field

and the earth churned black behind them, like earth churning, solid gold as it was—that was the wonder of Hephaestus' work.

And he forged a king's estate where harvesters labored,

reaping the ripe grain, swinging their whetted scythes Some stalks fell in line with the reapers, row on row, and others the sheaf-binders girded round with ropes, three binders standing over the sheaves, behind them boys gathering up the cut swaths, filling their arms,

supplying grain to the binders, endless bundles.

And there in the midst the king,

scepter in hand at the head of the reaping-rows,

stood tall in silence, rejoicing in his heart.

And off to the side, beneath a spreading oak,

the heralds were setting out the harvest feast,

they were dressing a great ox they had slaughtered,

while attendant women poured out barley, generous, glistening handfuls strewn for the reapers' midday meal.

And he forged a thriving vineyard loaded with clusters, bunches of lustrous grapes in gold, ripening deep purple and climbing vines shot up on silver-vine poles.

And round it he cut a ditch in dark blue enamel

and round the ditch he staked a fence in tin.

And one lone footpath led toward the vineyard

and down it the pickers ran

whenever they went to strip the grapes at vintage—

girls and boys, their hearts leaping in innocence,

bearing away the sweet ripe fruit in wicker baskets.

And there among them a young boy plucked his lyre,

so clear it could break the heart with longing,

and what he sang was a dirge for the dying year,

lovely… his fine voice rising and falling low

as the rest followed, all together, frisking, singing,

shouting, their dancing footsteps beating out the time And he forged on the shield a herd of longhorn cattle, working the bulls in beaten gold and tin, lowing loud and rumbling out of the farmyard dung to pasture

along a rippling stream, along the swaying reeds.

And the golden drovers kept the herd in line,

Four in all with nine dos at their heels

their paws flickering quickly—a savage roar!—

a crashing attack—and a pair of ramping lions

had seized a bull from the cattle's front ranks—

he bellowed out as they dragged him off in agony.

Packs of dogs and the young herdsmen rushed to help but the lions ripping open the hide of the huge bull

were gulping down the guts and the black pooling blood while the herdsmen yelled the fast pack on—no use.

The hounds shrank from sinking teeth in the lions,

they balked, hunching close, barking, cringing away.

And the famous crippled Smith forged a meadow

deep in a shaded glen for shimmering flocks to graze,

with shepherds' steadings, well-roofed huts and sheepfolds.

And the crippled Smith brought all his art to bear

on a dancing circle, broad as the circle Daedalus

once laid out on Cnossos' spacious fields

for Ariadne the girl with lustrous hair.

Here young boys and girls, beauties courted

with costly gifts of oxen, danced and danced,

linking their arms, gripping each other's wrists.

And the girls wore robes of linen light and flowing,

the boys wore finespun tunics rubbed with a gloss of oil,

the girls were crowned with a bloom of fresh garlands,

the boys swung golden daggers hung on silver belts.

And now they would run in rings on their skilled feet,

nimbly, quick as a crouching potter spins his wheel,

palming it smoothly, giving it practice twirls

to see it run, and now they would run in rows,

in rows crisscrossing rows—rapturous dancing.

A breathless crowd stood round them struck with joy

and through them a pair of tumblers dashed and sprang,

whirling in leaping handsprings, leading out the dance.

And he forged the Ocean River's mighty power girdling

round the outmost rim of the welded indestructible shield.

And once the god had made that great and massive shield

he made Achilles a breastplate brighter than gleaming fire,

he made him a sturdy helmet to fit the fighter's temples,

beautiful, burnished work, and raised its golden crest

and made him greaves of flexing, pliant tin.

Now, when the famous crippled Smith had finished off

that grand array of armor, lifting it in his arms

he laid it all at the feet of Achilles' mother Thetis—

and down she flashed like a hawk from snowy Mount Olympus

bearing the brilliant gear, the god of fire's gift.

—Homer(translated by Robert Fagles)

This is a remarkable and perhaps a unique book There have been many studies of the development ofwarfare, even more of the history of international relations, while those on international andconstitutional law are literally innumerable But I know of none that has dealt with all three of thesetogether, analyzed their interaction throughout European history, and used that analysis to describe theworld in which we live and the manner in which it is likely to develop Indeed, few people can matchPhilip Bobbitt's qualifications to write it: doctorates in both law and strategic studies, a respectedrecord of publications in both, long experience in government, and all informed by a deepunderstanding of history such as most professional historians would envy

Even as recently as a decade ago Bobbitt's approach, and yet more, his conclusions, would haveseemed profoundly shocking to international lawyers and specialists in international relations alike.The conventional wisdom of the Western world, derived from Kant through Jeremy Bentham,proclaimed by Woodrow Wilson in 1918 and implemented by Franklin D Roosevelt in 1945, wasthat war was a condition of international disorder that should and would be remedied by thedevelopment of international law and enforced by appropriate courts on the model of those prevalent

in Western democracies On that basis had been created the whole apparatus of the United Nationsand World Courts on which we allegedly depend today for the maintenance of international order andwhich quite manifestly fails to provide it Bobbitt goes back to an older and bleaker tradition: thatassociated with the name of Niccolò Macchi-avelli, who wrote in a time in many respects verycomparable to our own Then as now the accepted paradigm of legitimate order, in his day thehierarchy of feudalism, was breaking down A new template of legitimacy was needed, and could beprovided only by a new institution, the State, termed by Thomas Hobbes “That Mortal God—ourpeace and defence.” The State promised peace and defense to its members in return for theirallegiance, their money, and, if need be, their lives But the State could emerge and sustain itself onlythrough success in war, and success depended on mastering the appropriate techniques—the weaponssystems, the motivations, and the financial underpinning Success in war legitimized the State, and thestructures developed by the successful states—not simply the armed forces themselves but thefinancial arrangements required to pay for them and the constitutional relationship between rulers andruled that made those arrangements possible—became the new paradigm for political authority andobedience throughout the European continent

“International relations” thus became the relationship between sovereign States But whence didthose States derive their legitimacy? By the nineteenth century two very different schools of thoughthad developed In Western Europe and the United States, after the English, American, and FrenchRevolutions, it was assumed that the legitimacy of the State arose from popular consent enshrined inwritten or unwritten constitutions Since these constitutions guaranteed domestic justice and order, itwas further assumed that a similar mechanism would produce justice and order between statesthemselves States that disturbed international order were behaving as “illegally” as were rebelsagainst domestic order, and war against them was as legitimate as forcible proceedings againstdomestic rebellion But in nineteenth century Germany a very different analysis had been developed

by Hegel and his disciples The State, they pointed out, was created not by law but by war Since the

State was not only the highest but the sole creator of legitimacy, self-preservation was the State's firstduty and the primary concern of its citizens' allegiance As the State had come into existence throughwar (a thesis self-evident in the case of Prussia, but no less applicable to the Untied States) so itcould only survive and express itself through war This philosophy was to shape German policy in thefirst half of the twentieth century If Germany had won the two World Wars, the subsequent settlementwould have borne the stamp of Hegel rather than that of Jeremy Bentham.

This is Bobbitt's starting point: “Law and strategy” he writes, “are mutually affecting.” There is aconstant interaction between the two Legitimacy itself “is a constitutional idea that is sensitive tostrategic events”—not least to a “strategic event” so cataclysmic as losing a war Nevertheless,although wars may create and mold states, it is the State that creates legitimacy both domestic andexternal, and it is legitimacy that maintains “peace.” If states can no longer maintain their legitimacy,

or if their capacity to do so is called into question, then there will be another war, the out-come ofwhich will create a new legitimacy To ignore the legal aspect of international order is a recipe forthe total and permanent war preached by Ludendorff and, more effectively, his younger colleagueAdolf Hitler To ignore the strategic aspect, as did Woodrow Wilson and his disciples, is at best toforfeit the capacity to create an international order reflecting one's own value system; at worst, to see

it destroyed altogether

In the first part of this book Bobbitt shows how the very nature of the State has been determined bythe changing demands of war, and how it developed through a series of what he terms “EpochalWars.” In early modern Europe, princes had to create state mechanisms—administrativebureaucracies, legal systems, fiscal apparatus—to extract enough taxes from their subjects to enablethem to conduct wars that were made increasingly expensive by the need to pay full-time mercenaryforces, to build fortifications, and to buy guns At the same time they created a common structure forreciprocal acceptance and mutual recognition, a “Society of States” that was eventually established

by the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, to be updated at Utrecht in 1713 and again at Vienna a hundredyears later The legitimacy of this structure—states defined by territorial boundaries ruled by dynasticrulers “absolute” in their jurisdiction—was challenged at the end of the eighteenth century by theconcept of the “nation,” one that not only created a new criterion of legitimacy but could aloneprovide the numbers and motivation of a new age of mass warfare But if these newly enlisted masseswere to be motivated and militarily effective the State had to provide not only defense but welfareand education, and if they did not the “audit of war” would find them out That was what happened inthe First World War, which destroyed the dynastic regimes that proved unable to mobilize andmotivate their peoples But no peace was then possible until an alternative criterion of legitimacyemerged that could win universal acceptance A three-cornered struggle had to take place between theliberal democracy of the West, the bellicose tribalism of Nazi Germany, and the authoritariansocialism of the Soviet Union So for Bobbitt the Long War that opened in 1914 ended only with theSoviet collapse in 1990 and the apparent triumph of Western concepts of “legitimacy.”

The settlements reached at Paris in 1990 that concluded both the Second World War and the ColdWar that followed it might have been expected, like its predecessors at Vienna, Utrecht, andWestphalia, to introduce another long period of stable peace Both Germany and Russia were nowdemocratic nation-states and accepted “Western values”; not only the rule of law legitimized bydemocratic consent, but a further criterion of legitimacy that had developed in the West during thestruggle against totalitarianism—the recognition of universal “human rights”: a major derogation fromthe state sovereignty that had been the basis of international relations since the Peace of Westphalia

But there was another and yet more fundamental difference between this peace settlement and itspredecessors Those had established a stability between nations that rested on a balance between thepowers This recognized not so much the triumph of Western democratic values as the overwhelmingand apparently unchallengeable power of the United States: its supremacy in the weapons systemscreated by nuclear and information technology, its enormous wealth, and the universal attractiveness

of its popular culture America's European allies were at best subordinate and dependent associates.This, so it was hoped, would be a unipolar world of a kind not seen since the fall of the RomanEmpire; but like the Roman Empire, it would be based on a rule of law

What went wrong? It is here that Bobbitt's thesis becomes fascinating and controversial Oneobvious feature of the Paris treaties was that, although they may have settled the problems that hadtormented Europe for the past hundred years, Europe was now only one region in a global systemwhose complexities that settlement did not begin to address Even within Europe, the settlement couldnot deal with the fallacy that had invalidated the Wilsonian world vision from the very beginning.Nation-states, the building blocks of the international community, are not “given”: they have to becreated Nations—self-conscious ethnic communities—do not create states, though they can certainlydestroy them On the contrary, with few exceptions, states create nations Even in Europe the problem

of “state-building” in the Balkans remained, and remains, unsolved, while elsewhere in the worldstable nation-states are the exception rather than the rule More common are states that have signallyfailed to create nations, and can barely function as “states” at all

Further, even the great nation-states that possessed the cohesion and discipline to fight and survivethe two World Wars were already becoming obsolete It did not require a mass effort of nationaldedication to produce the weapons that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, nor could a similar efforthave preserved them It was largely the realization of their reciprocal vulnerability that prevented theconflict between the West and the Soviet Union from erupting into violence, and made it possible forthe Soviet Union to be defeated by American “soft power.” For if weapons of mass destruction could

so easily penetrate the conventional defenses of the nation-state—and to nuclear there were to beadded chemical and biological threats—so could, in peacetime, economic strength and culturaldominance Instant communications made possible by information technology were creating a globalsociety that, though far from homogenous, was increasingly interdependent, and within which nonation-state, however powerful, could regard itself as independent and invulnerable: not even theUnited States, as it discovered on September 11, 2001

So as the development of guns had destroyed the old feudal order, and the development of railwaysthe old dynastic order, now the development of computers has destroyed the nation-state Not theState itself, as Bobbitt is at pains to show: the State will always be necessary to provide security,fiscal organization, and law But in the same way as princely states mutated into dynastic territorialstates, and they in their turn into nation-states, now nation-states are mutating into what Bobbitt terms

“market-states,” and the second part of his book is devoted to describing the nature of market-statesand the possible kinds of world that they may create The plural is significant: Bobbitt provides nosingle scenario for the future but multiples, none of them very attractive: we are required to chooseamong a wide range of equally disagreeable dystopias We are also required to choose among a widerange of possible wars, because Bobbitt is under no illusion that, any more than their predecessors,market-states will provide perpetual peace At worst there may be cataclysms, at best a continuation

of the low-key global violence to which we have become accustomed over the past ten years andfrom which not even the wealthiest and most powerful communities will be able to escape The best

they can do is reduce their vulnerability, and the only victory they can look forward to is avoidance ofdefeat.

This book was virtually complete before the events of September 11 gave a horrible reality to

Bobbitt's description of the possibilities that now lie before us But for that, The Shield of Achilles might be ranked with such massive prophecies of doom as Spengler's Decline of the West , which

scared us witless in the 1930s and is now deservedly forgotten Such a fate is unlikely to befall thisvolume Anyone who believes that the author contemplated with equanimity the future that lies before

us should first read the poem from which the book takes its title Bobbitt believes that mankind could

be facing a tragedy without precedent in its history It is not clear that he is wrong

—Michael Howard

We are at a moment in world affairs when the essential ideas that govern statecraft must change For five centuries it has taken the resources of a state to destroy another state: only states could muster the huge revenues, conscript the vast armies, and equip the divisions required to threaten the survival of other states Indeed posing such threats, and meeting them, created the modern state In such a world, every state knew that its enemy would be drawn from a small class of potential adversaries This is no longer true, owing to advances

in international telecommunications, rapid computation, and weapons of mass destruction The change in statecraft that will accompany these developments will be as profound as any that the State has thus far undergone.

THE END OF THE LONG WAR AND THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE MODERN STATE

This book is about the modern state—how it came into being, how it has developed, and in whatdirections we can expect it to change Epochal wars, those great coalitional conflicts that often extendover decades, have been critical to the birth and development of the State, and therefore much of thisbook is concerned with the history of warfare Equally determinative of the State has been its legalorder, and so this is a book about law, especially constitutional and international law as thesesubjects relate to statecraft This book, however, is neither a history of war nor a work of

jurisprudence Rather it is principally concerned with the relationship between strategy and the legal

order as this relationship has shaped and transformed the modern state and the society composed ofthese states A new form of the State—the market-state—is emerging from this relationship in muchthe same way that earlier forms since the fifteenth century have emerged, as a consequence of war.This war, the fifth great epochal war in modern history, began in 1914 and only ended in 1990 TheLong War, like previous epochal wars, brought into being a new form of the State—the market-state.The previous form—the constitutional order of the nation-state—is now everywhere under siege

As a result of the Long War, the State is being transformed, and this transformation is constitutional

in nature, by which I mean we will change our views as to the basic raison d'être of the State, the

legitimating purpose that animates the State and sets the terms of the State's strategic endeavors

The nation-state's model of statecraft links the sovereignty of a state to its territorial borders.Within these borders a state is supreme with respect to its law, and beyond its borders a state earnsthe right of recognition and intercourse to the extent that it can defend its borders Today this modelconfronts several deep challenges Because the international order of nation-states is constructed onthe foundation of this model of state sovereignty, developments that cast doubt on that sovereignty callthe entire system into question

Five such developments do so: (i) the recognition of human rights as norms that require adherencewithin all states, regardless of their internal laws; (2) the widespread deployment of nuclear weaponsand other weapons of mass destruction that render the defense of state borders ineffectual for theprotection of the society within; (3) the proliferation of global and transnational threats that transcendstate borders, such as those that damage the environment, or threaten states through migration,population expansion, disease, or famine; (4) the growth of a world economic regime that ignoresborders in the movement of capital investment to a degree that effectively curtails states in themanagement of their economic affairs; and (5) the creation of a global communications network thatpenetrates borders electronically and threatens national languages, customs, and cultures As aconsequence, a constitutional order will arise that reflects these five developments and indeed exaltsthem as requirements that only this new order can meet The emergence of a new basis for the Statewill also change the constitutional assumptions of the international society of states, for thatframework too derives from the domestic consti-tutional rationale of its constituent members

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MILITARY INNOVATION AND CHANGE IN THE CONSTITUTIONAL ORDER

Ever since Max Weber, 1 scholars have argued that a revolution in military affairs brought forth themodern state by requiring an organized system of finance and administration in order for societies todefend themselves Accepting this premise, however, it is unclear precisely which revolution inmilitary affairs actually brought the modern state into being Was it the use of mobile artillery in thesixteenth century that abruptly rendered the castles and moats of the Middle Ages useless? Or was itthe Gunpowder Revolution of the seventeenth century that replaced the shock tactics of pikemen withmusket fire? Or the rise in professionalism within the military in the eighteenth century and the cabinetwars this made possible (or was it the change in tactics that accompanied mass conscription in thenineteenth century) ? One important consequence of asking this question in this way is that it assumesthat there has been only one form of the modern state: the nation-state If, as many believe, the nation-state is dying owing to the five developments mentioned above, then this scholarly debate about thebirth of the state has consequences for its death

But if we see, on the contrary, that each of the important revolutions in military affairs enabled a

political revolution in the fundamental constitutional order of the State, then we will be able not only

to better frame the scholarly debate but also to appreciate that the death of the nation-state by nomeans presages the end of the State Moreover, we will then be able to see aright the many currentpolitical conflicts that arise from the friction between the decaying nation-state and the emergingmarket-state, conflicts that have parallels in the past when one constitutional order was replaced byanother and led to civil strife within the State and spurred novel and deadly conflict abroad Finally,

we will be better prepared to craft new strategies for the use of force that are appropriate to this newconstitutional order—and vice versa

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE CONSTITUTIONAL ORDER AND

THE INTERNATIONAL ORDER

Every society has a constitution Of course not all of these are written constitutions—the Britishconstitution, for example, is unwritten Nor does every society happen to require a state But everysociety—the Vineyard Haven Yacht Club no less than the Group of Eight—has a constitution because

to be a society is to be constituted in some particular way If a revolution in military affairs enablesthe triumph of certain constitutional order in war, then the peace conferences that ratify such triumphsset the terms for admission to the society of legitimate states, a society that is reconstituted after eachgreat epochal war on the basis of a consensus among states Each great peace conference that ended

an epochal war wrote a constitution for the society of states

Yet all constitutions also carry within themselves the seeds of future conflict The 1789 U.S.constitution was pregnant with the 1861 civil war because it contained, in addition to a bill of rights,provisions for slavery and provincial autonomy Similarly the international constitution created atWestphalia in 1648, no less than those created at Vienna in 1815 or Utrecht in 1713, set the terms forthe conflict to come even while it settled the conflict just ended The importance of this idea in ourpresent period of transition is that we can shape the next epochal war if we appreciate itsinevitability and also the different forms it may take I believe that we face the task of developingcooperative practices that will enable us to undertake a series of low-intensity conflicts Failing this,

we will face an international environment of increasingly violent anarchy and, possibly, acataclysmic war in the early decades of the twenty-first century

While it is commonly assumed that the nuclear great powers would not (because they need not) usenuclear weapons in an era in which they do not threaten each other, in fact the new era that we areentering makes their use by a great power more likely than in the last half century Deterrence andassured retaliation, as well as overwhelming conventional force, which together laid the basis for thevictory of the coalition of parliamentary nation-states in the Cold War era, cannot provide a similarstability in the era of the market-state to come because the source of the threats to a state are now atonce too ubiquitous and too easy to disguise We cannot deter an attacker whose identity is unknown

to us, and the very massiveness of our conventional forces makes it unlikely we will be challengedopenly As a consequence, we are just beginning to appreciate the need for a shift from target, threat-based assessments to vulnerability analyses.* What is less appreciated is the consequent loss ofintrawar deterrence† and the implications of this loss with respect to the actual use of nuclearweapons To illustrate this paradox consider this example: Nuclear weapons do not deter biologicalwarfare (because its true perpetrators can be easily disguised), and yet a nuclear strike is probablythe only feasible means of destroying a biological stockpile that is easy to hide and fortify in asubterranean vault As we shall see, the possibilities of nuclear pre-emptive strikes, draconianinternal repression, and fitful retaliation all accompany the scenarios of weakened deterrence anddisguised attacks, and all can lead to cataclysmic wars between states that would otherwise studiedlyavoid such confrontations Even though the possibility of cataclysmic war threatens the twenty-firstcentury, however, defensive systems can play a far more useful role than they could in the previousperiod, when they tended to weaken deterrence

At the same time that we have experienced these quiet yet disturbing changes in the strategic

environment, there have been ongoing low-intensity conflicts of the kind we have seen in Bosnia,Rwanda, Northern Ireland, Palestine, and elsewhere, which are being transformed by the informationrevolution Remote, once local tribal wars have engaged the values and interests of all the greatpowers because these conflicts have been exported into the domestic populations of those powersthrough immigration empathy, and terrorism.

What is rarely noted is the relation between cataclysmic and low-intensity wars and the

constitution of the society of market-states that will have to fight them There can be no peace

settlement without war, but there can be peace making If we can successfully manage the consensusinterventions of the great powers in low-intensity conflicts—as we have done, finally, in the formerstate of Yugoslavia—we will have constructed a new constitution for the society of market-states,thereby avoiding the systemic breakdown that provokes more generally catastrophic war It may bethat the very vulnerability of the critical infrastructures of the developed world, which invites, evennecessitates, great-power cooperation, will then provide a basis for strengthening the society of statesthrough information sharing and market cooperation

HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE EMERGING WORLD ORDER OF MARKET-STATES

There is a widespread sense that we are at a pivotal point in history—but why is it pivotal? Thisbook offers an answer: that we are at one of a half dozen turning points that have fundamentallychanged the way societies are organized for governance It identifies this change and shows how it isrelated to five previous such pivotal moments that began with the emergence of the modern state at thetime of the Renaissance It lays bare the neglected relationship between the strategic and theconstitutional—the outer and inner faces of the State Yet, this book is just as concerned with thefuture as it is with the past, laying out alternative possible worlds of the twenty-first century

The modern state came into existence when it proved necessary to organize a constitutional orderthat could wage war more effectively than the feudal and mercantile orders it replaced Theemergence of a new form of the State and the decay of an old one is part of a process that goes back

to the very beginning of the modern state, perhaps to the beginning of civil society itself That processtakes place in the fusing of the inner and outer dominions of authority: law and strategy

Whether war or law is the initial object of innovation, constitutional and strategic changeinevitably ensue, and new forms of the State are the result of the interaction Each new form of theState is distinguished by its unique basis for legitimacy—the historical claim it makes that entitles theState to power

A great epochal war has just ended The various competing systems of the contemporary state (fascism, communism, parliamentarianism) that fought that war all took their legitimacy from thepromise to better the material welfare of their citizens The market-state offers a different covenant: itwill maximize the opportunity of its people Not only the world in which we live but also the worldthat is now emerging is more comprehensible and more insistent once this historical development isappreciated and explored for the implications it holds for the fate of civilization itself

nation-The emergence of the market-state will produce conflict in every society as the old ways of thesuperseded nation-state (its use of law to bring about certain desired moral outcomes, for example)fall away This emergence will also produce alternative systems that follow different versions of themarket-state in London, Singapore, or Paris, and this development could also lead to conflict Mostimportant, however, the global society of market-states will face lethal security challenges in an era

of weakened governments and impotent formal international institutions And these challenges willpose difficult internal problems as well, as every developed, postindustrial state struggles to maintaindemocracy and civil liberties in the face of new technological threats to its well-being

A society of market-states, however, will be good at setting up markets This facility could bringabout an international system that rewards peaceful states and stimulates opportunity in education,productivity, investment, environmental protection, and public health by sharing the technologies thatare crucial to advancement in these areas And these habits of collaboration can provide precedentsfor security cooperation; for example, the United States can develop ballistic missile defensetechnology or fissile material sensors that can be licensed to threatened countries The technology forsafer nuclear energy can be provided as a way, perhaps the only way, of halting global warmingwhile assisting Third World economic development A state's internal difficulties can be dealt with—

perhaps can only be dealt with—through international information sharing that the market makesfeasible Markets, on the other hand, are not very good at assuring political representation or givingequal voice to every group Unaided by the assurance that the political process will not besubordinated to the most powerful market actors, markets can become targets of the alienated and ofthose who are disenfranchised by any shift away from national or ethnic institutions.

The decisions that arise from the emergence of the market-state are already, or will soon be, upon

us, but they are often disguised if they are not seen in the context of this new form of the State

THE FUTURE OF THE STATE

The pattern of epochal wars and state formation, of peace congresses and international constitutions,has played out for five centuries to the end of the millennium just past A new constitutional order—the market-state—is about to emerge But if the pattern of earlier eras is to be repeated, then we await

a new, epochal war with state-shattering consequences Many persons see war as an illness of states,

a pathology that no healthy state need suffer This way of looking at things more or less disables usfrom shaping future wars, as we search, fruitlessly, for the wonder serum that will banish war onceand for all (or as we plan to fight wars we know—or believe—we can win) Yet we can shape futurewars, even if we cannot avoid them We can take decisions that will determine whether the nextepochal war risks a general cataclysm

Whatever course is decided upon will be both constitutional and strategic in nature because theseare the two faces of the modern state—the face the state turns toward its own citizens, and the face itturns toward the outside world of its competitors and collaborators Each state develops its ownconstitutional order (its inward-facing profile) as well as its strategic paradigm (its outward-turnedsilhouette), and these two forms are logically and topologically inseparable A state that privatizesmost of its functions by law will inevitably defend itself by employing its own people as mercenaries

—with profound strategic consequences A state threatened with cyberattacks on its interdependentinfrastructures can protect itself by virtually abolishing civil privacy or by increasing officialsurveillance and intelligence gathering or by expensively decentralizing Each course has profoundconstitutional consequences

THE STRUCTURE OF THIS BOOK

The Shield of Achilles treats the relationship between strategy and law I had originally intended to

publish this study in two volumes, corresponding to the different focus in each: whereas the first part

of this work deals with the State, the second takes up the society of states; whereas the first is largelydevoted to war and its interplay with the constitutional order of the State, the second concentrates onpeace settlements and their structuring of the international order

I have come to see, however, that there is so intimate a connection between the epochal rhythms ofstate formation and the abrupt shifts in international evolution that a single volume is truer to mysubject Nevertheless, for readers interested in the history and future of war, Book I, “State of War,”can stand alone; for those interested in the history and future of international society, I believe Book

II, “States of Peace,” can be read with profit by itself

At the beginning of each of the six Parts of this combined work, a general thesis is set forth as akind of overture to the narrative argument that is then provided Similarly, the poems that precede andfollow each of the Parts reflect some of the motifs of the presentation

“State of War,” Book I of this work, focuses on the individual state; it is divided into three parts,which correspond to three general arguments

Part I, “The Long War of the Nation-State,” argues that the war that began in 1914 did not end until

1990 By looking at earlier epochal wars beginning with the Peloponnesian Wars, one can see howhistorians from Thucydides onward have determined whether a particular campaign is a completedwar or only a part of a more extended conflict such as the Thirty Years' War Epochal wars put theconstitutional basis of the participants in play and do not truly end until the underlying constitutionalquestions are resolved This is how it was with the Long War, which was fought to determine which

of three alternatives—communism, fascism, or parliamentarianism—would replace the imperialconstitutional orders of the nineteenth century The Long War embraces conflicts we at present callthe First World War, the Bolshevik Revolution, the Spanish Civil War, the Second World War, thewars in Korea and Viet Nam, and the Cold War

Part II provides “A Brief History of the Modern State and the Constitutional Order”* beginningwith the origin of the State in Italy at the end of the fifteenth century and ending with the events thatbegan the Long War These chapters assert the thesis that epochal wars have brought about profoundchanges in the constitutional order of states through a process of innovation and mimicry as somestates are compelled to innovate, strategically and constitutionally, in order to survive, and as otherstates copy these innovations when they prove decisive in resolving the epochal conflict of an era.Sometimes the impetus comes from the constitutional side, as when the political changes wrought bythe French Revolution in the late eighteenth century demanded tactical and strategic change to copewith the loss of a highly trained officer corps; sometimes the impetus was the reverse, as when theuse of mobile artillery against the rich walled city-states of Italy in the early sixteenth centuryrequired the creation of bureaucracies and efficient systems of taxation Most often the causality wasmutual: strategic innovations (like the use of mass conscription) brought about changes in theconstitutional order of the State—such as a broadened franchise and mass public education—andthese constitutional changes in turn brought forth new tactical and strategic approaches that sought to

exploit the possibilities created by the new domestic political environment, opportunities forinnovations as different as terror bombing and the Officer Candidate School.

Part III of Book I, “The Historic Consequences of the Long War,” argues that the Long War of thetwentieth century was another such epochal war, and that it has brought about the emergence of a newform of the State, the market-state These chapters address the situation of the United States, one of thefirst market-states, and suggest how this state will change both constitutionally and strategically asthis new constitutional order comes to maturity

Related theses can be found elsewhere The notion that state formation in Europe occurred as aresult of a revolution in military tactics (a claim made by Michael Roberts and others), the “shortcentury” thesis (the notion that the century began in 1914 and ended with the end of the Cold War)associated with Eric Hobsbawm, and even the notion that a new form of society is coming into being(proposed by Peter Drucker, among others) are well-known My thesis, however, implies, but alsodepends upon, the constitutional/strategic dynamic of five centuries, and it is this dynamic that shapesthe expectations I put forward about the future structure and purpose of the market-state

While Book I treats the individual state, Book II, “States of Peace,” deals with the subject of thesociety of states The society of states, as described notably by the late Hedley Bull, is to bedistinguished from the state system The state system is a formal entity that is composed of statesalone and defined by their formal treaties and agreements The society of states, on the other hand, iscomposed of the formal and informal customs, rules, practices, and habits of states and encompassesmany entities—like the Red Cross and CNN—that are not states at all International law is usuallydefined in terms of the state system There are, of course, exceptions to this way of looking atinternational law, particularly in the work of Myres McDougal and his followers In Book II, I treatinternational law as the practices of the society of states rather than as an artifact of the state system Iargue that international law is a symptom of the triumph of a particular constitutional order within theindividual states of which that society consists (and is not therefore a consequence solely of theinternational acts of states) International law arises from constitutional law, not the other wayaround

Part I of Book II, “The Society of Nation-States,” deals with the society of states in which wecurrently live It traces the origins of this society to the abortive peace that followed World War I andthe American program that attempted to superimpose the U.S constitutional model on the society ofstates Part I then brings this plan forward to its collapse in Bosnia in the 1990s, and concludes withthe claim that the society of nation-states is rapidly decaying Although it is not novel to encounter aclaim that the nation-state is dying, my thesis is markedly different from others because it derivesfrom my general conclusion that the dying and regeneration of its constitutional orders are a periodicpart of the history of the modern state Those who write that the nation-state is finished are usuallyalso of the view that the nation-state is synonymous with the modern state itself Thus they arecommitted to maintaining that the State is withering away, a highly implausible view in my judgment.Once one sees, however, that there have been many forms of the modern state, one can appreciate thatthough the nation-state is in fact dying, the modern state is only undergoing one of its periodictransformations

Part II of Book II, “A Brief History of the Society of States and the International Order,” revisitsthe historic conflicts that have given the modern state its shape and which were the subject of Part II

of Book I In Book II, however, the perspective has changed Here I am less concerned with epochal

wars than I am with the peace agreements that ended those wars Part II makes the claim that thesociety of modern states has had a series of constitutions, and that these constitutions were theoutcome of the great peace congresses that ended epochal wars The state conflicts discussed in Book

I are taken up in Book II in terms of their peace conferences, culminating in the twentieth century withthe Peace of Paris that ended the Long War in 1990 In these chapters, the emphasis is on internationallaw rather than strategic conflict, though of course, consistent with my general thesis, the two subjectsare treated as inextricably intertwined

Part III, “The Society of Market-States,” depicts the future of the society of states Its chaptershypothesize various possible worlds that depend on different choices we are even now in the process

of making Most of this Part is devoted to a series of scenarios about the future, adapting methodspioneered by the Royal Dutch Shell Corporation Book II ends with the conclusion that, by varying thedegree of sovereignty retained by the People, different societies will develop different forms of themarket-state The task ahead will be to develop rules for cooperation when these differ-entapproaches frustrate consensus or even invite conflict—a conflict that could threaten the verysurvival of some states

Finally, I should like to provide some background regarding the title of this work “The Shield ofAchilles” is the name of a poem by W H Auden At the end of this book I have reprinted that poem infull It provides, in alternating stanzas, a juxtaposition of the epic description of classical heroicwarrior society with a gritty, twentieth century depiction of warfare and civilian suffering It isimportant to remember, in the discussions on which we are about to embark, that they ultimatelyconcern violence, and that our moral and practical decisions have real consequences in the use offorce, and all that the use of force entails for suffering and death This is the first point to be suggested

by the title

The shield for which Auden named his poem and to whose description much of the poem is

devoted is described by Homer in Book XVIII of the Iliad, lines 558 – 720 (see pp ix – xiii) Manyreaders will be familiar with this famous passage, which has inspired paintings by Rubens, VanDyck, West, and others as well as countless classical Greek depictions It will be recalled that theTrojan hero Hector had claimed the armor worn by Patroclus when he slew Patroclus in battle; thisarmor had belonged to Achilles Patroclus had borne Achilles armor into battle in an effort to inspirethe Greeks by making them believe that Achilles himself had taken the field Achilles then asked hismother, the sea goddess Thetis, to procure for him another set of armor from Hephaestus, the armorer

of the gods, whose forge was beneath the volcano at Mount Etna

Hephaestus's mirror, which showed the past, present, and future, might also come to the minds ofsome persons It is my aim not only to support certain theses about strategy, law, and history witharguments drawing on the past, but to illuminate our present predicament and speculate about thechoices the future will present us This is another resonance of this title to which I wish to callattention

Hephaestus created an elaborate shield on which he depicted a wedding and feasts, a marketplace,dancing and athletics, a law court, and a battle, along with other arts of culture, the cultivation offields, and the making of wine This is the main point that I wish my readers to bear in mind: war is aproduct as well as a shaper of culture Animals do not make war, even though they fight No less thanthe market and the law courts, with which it is inextricably intertwined, war is a creative act ofcivilized man with important consequences for the rest of human culture, which include the festivals

of peace.

Many things ought to look different after one has finished reading this book: former U.S PresidentBill Clinton, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, whohave been widely criticized in their respective parties, will be seen as architects attempting aprofound change in the constitutional order of a magnitude no less than Bismarck's As of this writing,U.S President George W Bush appears to be pursuing a similar course on many fronts Foreignpolicy concerns, like the protection of the critical infrastructure of the developed world or thecreation of intervention forces (such as those so discredited in Viet Nam and Somalia), which maynow seem marginal, will be seen as centerpieces in the struggle to change, or at least manage, theshape of wars to come The law-oriented methods of the nation-state will be seen as being replaced

by the market-oriented methods of the market-state, setting controversies as different as abortionrights and affirmative action in a new context For example, nation-states typically endorsed—orbanned—prayers in public schools because such states used legal regulations on behalf of particularmoral commitments The market-state is more likely to provide an open forum for prayers from manycompeting sects, maximizing the opportunity for expression without endorsing any particular moralview This is but one example of countless such contrasts

Above all, the reader should get from this book a sense of the importance of certain choices thatotherwise might be made in isolation but that will structure our future as thoroughly as similar choices

in the last half millennium structured our past

There are times when the present breaks the shackles of the past to create the future—the Long War

of the twentieth century, now past, was one of those But there are also times, such as the Renaissance

—when the first modern states emerged—and our own coming twenty-first century, when it is the pastthat creates the future, by breaking the shackles of the present.2

Still one more year of preparation.

Tomorrow at the latest I'll start working on a great book

In which my century will appear as it really was.

The sun will rise over the righteous and the wicked.

Springs and autumns will unerringly return,

In a wet thicket a thrush will build his nest lined with clay

And foxes will learn their foxy natures.

And that will be the subject, with addenda Thus: armies

Running across frozen plains, shouting a curse

In a many-voiced chorus; the cannon of a tank

Growing immense at the corner of a street; the ride at dusk

Into a camp with watchtowers and barbed wire.

No, it won't happen tomorrow In five or ten years.

I still think too much about the mothers

And ask what is man born of woman.

He curls himself up and protects his head

While he is kicked by heavy boots; on fire and running

He burns with bright flame; a bulldozer sweeps him into a clay pit.

Her child Embracing a teddy bear Conceived in ecstasy.

I haven't learned yet to speak as I should, calmly.

With not-quite truth

and not-quite art

and not-quite law

and not-quite science

Under not-quite heaven

on the not-quite earth

the not-quite guiltless

and the not-quite degraded

—Czeslaw Milosz

BOOK I

STATE OF WAR

Paradise Lost

(Book III, lines 111 – 125)

… They therefore as to right belonged,

so were created, nor can justly accuse

their maker, or their making, or their fate,

as if predestination overruled

their will, disposed by absolute decree

or high foreknowledge: they themselves decreed

Their own revolt, not I: if I foreknew,

foreknowledge had no influence on their fault,

which had no less proved certain unforeknown.

So without least impulse or shadow of fate,

or aught by me immutably foreseen,

they trespass, authors to themselves in all

both what they judge and what they choose; for so

I formed them free, and free they must remain,

till they enthrall themselves…

—John Milton

Law, Strategy, and History

LAW, STRATEGY, HISTORY —three ancient ideas whose interrelationship was perhaps farclearer to the ancients than it is to us, for we are inclined to treat these subjects as separate moderndisciplines Within each subject we expect economic or political or perhaps sociological causes toaccount for developments; we are unlikely to see any necessary relation among these three classicalideas They do not appear to depend upon each other

Of course we understand, from the point of view of any one of these three disciplines, how events

in one can affect events in another A war is won, and international law changes, as at the Nurembergtrials that followed World War II and called to account those who had obeyed orders they believed to

be lawful Or a war is lost, with the consequence that a new constitutional structure is imposed, ashappened to Japan after World War II Thus does strategy change law—and we call it history Or thelaw of a state changes—as by the French Revolution, for example—and this change brings about the

levée en masse that enables a Napoleon to conquer Europe through strategic genius; thus does law

change strategy, and this too we call history Or history itself brings new elements into play—afamine drives migration across a continent or technological innovation provides the stirrup—and anempire falls, and with its strategic collapse die also its laws With all these examples we arefamiliar, but we understand this interrelationship as the by-product of cause and effect, the mere

result of wars, famine, revolution, in which history is simply the record of events, organized

according to the usual subject matters We scarcely see that the perception of cause and effect itself—history—is the distinctive element in the ceaseless, restless dynamic by means of which strategy andlaw live out their necessary relationship to each other For law and strategy are not merely made inhistory—a sequence of events and culminating effects—they are made of history It is the self-portrayal of a society that enables it to know its own identity.1 Without this knowledge a society can-not establish its rule by law because every system of laws depends upon the continuity of legitimacy,which is an attribute of identity Furthermore, without such a self-portrayal, no society can pursue arational strategy because it is the identity of the society that strategy seeks to promote, protect, andpreserve One might say that without its own history, its self-understanding, no society can have eitherlaw or strategy, because it cannot be constituted as an independent entity

History, strategy, and law make possible legitimate governing institutions For five centuries, theoperation of these institutions has been synonymous with the presence of the modern state, and so wemay be inclined to think of the subjects of these disciplines—history, strategic studies, jurisprudence

—as mere manifestations of the State Such a reaction is natural enough with respect to law: somewriters, such as Kelsen2 and Austin, 3 have held that there is no law without the State And otherwriters, such as Machiavelli4 and Bodin, 5 present strategy as an aspect of the State, for it is the Statethat sets the terms of engagement pursued by generals, that fields their armies and declares their wars

or announces their capitulations It is even plausible to regard history in this way: for this reason,Hegel wrote that history ended at the Battle of Jena, with the birth of the state-nation, for history endswith the creation of an institution that makes the Absolute attainable.6 These reactions are

understandable but they are misguided.

The State exists by virtue of its purposes, and among these are a drive for survival and freedom ofaction, which is strategy; for authority and legitimacy, which is law; for identity, which is history Toput it differently, there is no state without strategy, law, and history, and, to complicate matters, thesethree are not merely interrelated elements, they are elements each composed at least partly of theothers The precise nature of this composition defines a particular state and is the result of manychoices States may be militaristic, legalistic, and traditional to varying degrees, but every state issome combination of these elements and can be contrasted with every other state—and with its ownpredecessors—in these ways

The legal and strategic choices a society confronts are often only recombinations of choicesconfronted and resolved in the past, now remade in a present condition of necessity and uncertainty.Law cannot come into being until the state achieves a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence.Similarly, a society must have a single legitimate government for its strategic designs to be laid;otherwise, the distinction between war and civil war collapses, and strategy degenerates intobanditry Until the governing institutions of a society can claim for themselves the sole right todetermine the legitimate use of force at home and abroad, there can be no state Without law, strategycannot claim to be a legitimate act of state Only if law prevails can it confer legitimacy on strategicchoices and give them a purpose.* Yet the legitimacy necessary for law and for strategy derives fromhistory, the understanding of past practices that characterizes a particular society

Today, all major states confront the apparently bewildering task of determining a new set of rulesfor the use of military force Commentators in many parts of the world have observed a curiousvacillation and fecklessness on the part of the great powers at the very time those powers ought to bemost united in their goals, for the Long War that divided them has now ended Or perhaps it is the end

of the Long War that accounts for such widespread confusion Because the ideological confrontationthat once clearly identified the threats to the states of either camp has evaporated, it has left thesestates uncertain as to how to configure, much less deploy, their armed forces.7 What seems tocharacterize the present period is a confusion about how to count the costs and benefits ofintervention, preparedness, and alliance What does the calculus for the use of force yield us when wehave done our sums? Only an unconvincing result that cannot silence the insistent question: “What areour forces for?”8 Because no calculus can tell us that We are at a moment when our understanding ofthe very purposes of the State is undergoing historic change Neither strategy nor law will beunaffected Until this change is appreciated, we will continue the dithering and the ad hockery, theaffectations of cynicism and the placid deceit that so typifies the international behavior of the greatpowers in this period, a period that ought to be the hour of our greatest coherence and conviction It isnot that the United States did or did not decide to go into Somalia or Bosnia; it's that the United Stateshas made numerous decisions, one after the other, in both directions And the same thing may be said

of the pronouncements of the other great powers regarding North Korea, Iraq, and Rwanda “Ad hocstrategies” is almost a contradiction in terms, because the more states respond to the variations of thehour, the less they benefit from strategic planning

The reason the traditional strategic calculus no longer functions is that it depends on certainassumptions about the relationship between the State and its objectives that the end of this longconflict has cast in doubt That calculus was never intended to enable a state to choose betweencompeting objectives: rather, that calculus depends upon the axiomatic requirement of the State to

survive by putting its security objectives first We are now entering a period, however, in which thesurvival of the State is paradoxically imperiled by such threat-based assumptions because the mostpowerful states do not face identifiable state-centered threats that in fact imperil their security.Having vanquished its ideological competitors, the democratic, capitalist, parliamentary state nolonger faces great-power threats, threats that would enable it to configure its forces by providing atemplate inferred from the capabilities of the adversary state Instead, the parliamentary statemanifests vulnerabilities that arise from a weakening of its own legitimacy This constitutional doubt

is only exacerbated by the strategic confusion abroad for which it is chiefly responsible So thealliance of parliamentary great powers,* having won their historic triumph, find themselves weakerthan ever, constantly undermining their own authority at home by their inability to use their influenceeffectively abroad With a loosening grip on their domestic orders, these powers are ever lessinclined to devote themselves to maintaining a world order The strategic thinking of statesaccustomed to war does not fit them for peace, which requires harmony and trust, nor can suchthinking yet be abandoned without risking a collapse of legitimacy altogether because the State's role

in guaranteeing security is the one responsibility that is not being challenged domestically and thus theone to which it clings We have entered a period in which, however, states must include in thecalculus of force the need to maintain world order This is not the first such period; indeed, the lastepoch of this kind was ended by the eruption of the conflict that has just closed, leaving us sodisoriented Accordingly, there is much to learn from the study of that conflict, and also from earliereras that were marked by changes in the constitutional form and strategic practices of the State

Preliminarily, there are a few widespread preconceptions that must be put to one side In contrast

to the prevalent view that war is the result of a decision made by an aggressor, I will assume that, as

a general matter, it takes two states to go to war The common picture many Americans andEuropeans have of states at war is that they came into hostilities as a result of the aggression of oneparty It is like a class bully in a schoolyard who provokes a fistfight in order to terrorize hisclassmates But the move to war is an act of the State and not of boys States that wish to aggrandizethemselves, or to depredate others, may employ aggression, but they do not seek war Rather it is thestate against whom the aggression has been mounted, typically, that makes the move to war, which is

a legal and strategic act, when that state determines it cannot acquiesce in the legal and strategicdemands of the aggressor So it was with Germany, Britain, and France in 1939.9 So it was withAthens and Sparta in 431 B.C A corollary to this idea is the perhaps counterintuitive notion thatsometimes a state will make the move to war even when it judges it will lose the war that ensues Astate that decides it can no longer acquiesce in a deteriorating position must ask itself whether, if itchooses to resist, it will nevertheless be better off, even if it cannot ultimately prevail in the eventualconflict

Many persons in the West believe that war occurs only because of miscalculation; sometimes thisopinion is combined with the view that only aggressors make war Persons holding these two viewswould have a hard time justifying the wisdom of Alliance resistance to Communism the last fiftyyears because it was usually the U.S and her allies and not the Soviets who resolutely and studiedlyescalated matters to crises threatening war Besides the obvious cases involving Berlin in 1952, orCuba in 1962, we might add the decisions to make the move to war in South Korea and in South VietNam, the nature and motivations of which decisions are underscored by the persistent refusals of theAmericans and their allies to bomb China or invade North Viet Nam That is, in both cases the alliedforces fought to stop aggression by going to war and declined to employ decisive counteraggression

Those persons who concede these facts and conclude that these deci-sions were wrong, and yetwho applaud the victory of the democracies in the Cold War, are perhaps obliged to reconsider theirviews For it was this peculiar combination of a willingness to make the move to war coupled with abenign nonaggression, even protectiveness, toward the other great powers that ultimately gave theAlliance victory Sometimes this matter is confused in the debate over precisely how this victory wasachieved Was the Cold War won because U.S.-led forces militarily denied Communist forces thosestrategic successes that would have sustained a world revolu-tion? Or was it won because northern-tier markets were able to build an international capitalist system that vastly outperformed the socialistsys-ttem (and an international communications network that informed the world of this achievement) ?Such a debate misses the point, perhaps because it is suffused with the assumptions about war andmiscalculation to which I have referred Neither military nor economic success alone could haveended the Cold War, because neither alone could deliver legitimacy to the winning state, or deny it tothe loser Moreover, neither military nor economic success was possible without the other: can oneimagine a European Union having developed without Germany, or with a Germany strategicallydetached from the West? Even the ill-fated American mission in Viet Nam contributed to the ultimateAlliance victory: a collapse of military resistance in Indochina in 1964 would have had politicaleffects on the very states of the region whose economies have since become so dynamic (analogous tothose effects that would have been felt in Japan following a collapse of resistance in Korea in 1950).The political and economic, far from being decisive causal factors on their own, are really two faces

of the same phenomenon Only the coherent union of a constitutional order and a strategic visioncould achieve the kind of results that ended, rather than merely interrupted, such an epochal war Weshall have to bear this in mind with regard to maintaining either success, political or economic, in thefuture

Contemporary imagination, however, like so many aspects of contemporary life, is suffused withpresentism This is often commented on by those who lament the current lack of interest in the past,but it is equally manifest, ironically, in our projections about the future This leads us to the thirdpreconception that must be dismissed: namely, that future states of affairs must be evaluated incomparison with the present, rather than with the unknowable future One encounters this often indaily life, in the adolescent's decision to quit school so “I can make more money” (because going toschool pays less than working in a fast-food shop) or the columnist's claim that “if we balanced thebudget, interest rates would drop and growth would increase” (because the government would not beadding to the demand for borrowed money) In those cases the speaker is making the mistake ofcomparing a future state of affairs with the present, and omitting to imagine what an alternative futurestate of affairs might be like (if he stayed in school and qualified for a better job; if the governmentsteeply increased taxes in order to balance the budget), which would provide the proper comparison

If this seems altogether too obvious, let me give one famous example of this preconception.*

Many commentators believe that the turning point in the 1980 U.S presidential elections came inthe first debate between the candidates when Governor Reagan asked the American people toconsider the question “Are you better off today than you were four years ago?” Indeed, this ripostewas so successful that it was used in the 1984 debate by Reagan's opponent, Walter Mondale; andused again by George Bush against Michael Dukakis; and then used by Governor Clinton againstPresident Bush

Such a question, however, can scarcely be the measure of a presidential administration because theone thing we know is that things will never stay the same for the length of a presidential term,