John Negroponte interview

[TristanAbbey]

Hi Folks,

We just posted some Q&A with John Negroponte over at Bellum:

http://bellum.stanfordreview.org/?p=1500

Two interesting aspects:
1. His comments on the durability of the nation-state.
2. His assertion that the world today is "quite benign"

Compare #2, especially, to the oft-repeated assertion by many -- from the President on downward -- that we live in a very "dangerous world."

Would love to hear what the forum thinks about his views on the nation-state -- perhaps in the context of his role in Honduras and Iraq as ambassador.

Tristan

[William F. Owen]

Two interesting aspects:
1. His comments on the durability of the nation-state.
2. His assertion that the world today is "quite benign"

Both true and blindingly obvious to any informed observer.
1. There have always been nation states. No event in human history has ever threatened them as an institution, and they will endure. Why is this is in anyway surprising? You have to plumb down into 4GW to find people will to assert it's not true.
2. Also true. Look at the world in the 1960's or 70's. Dangerous is a very relative description.

[John T. Fishel]

Wilf, is a relatively new phenomenon dating really from the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. While there have been states into antiquity they were either city-states such as Athens and Sparta or universal empires like Rome, Persia, or China. These tended to alternate with periods of feudalism which is a totally different form of political organization than the state.

With that clarification, we are in agreement.

Cheers

JohnT

[William F. Owen]

Wilf, is a relatively new phenomenon dating really from the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. While there have been states into antiquity they were either city-states such as Athens and Sparta or universal empires like Rome, Persia, or China. These tended to alternate with periods of feudalism which is a totally different form of political organization than the state.

With that clarification, we are in agreement.

Maybe. Nations are described in the "Bible". Egypt, Babylon etc. If it has a king or a ruler then it was a nation as such. Even the Mongols where a Nation!
I find the whole Westphalia thing a complete "so what." True but irrelevant.
I spent a whole weekend with T.X. Hammes and Bill Lind trying to explain it to me and I just couldn't get it!

[TristanAbbey]

Would you describe Bill Lind and TX Hammes as uninformed observers?

[Firn]

While there are a great many fine details I pretty much agree with Negroponte that the states will be the dominant political entities to come. The EU is a pretty interesting case, as it has in a lot of areas very considerable political power over it's member while have little influence in others. The discussion about it's status quo is from the juridical point of view rather intriguing.

Firn

[William F. Owen]

Would you describe Bill Lind and TX Hammes as uninformed observers?

No, I would not describe them as uninformed. I would attribute that epithet to a lot of folks who ride on their coat tails, and do not understand the actual nature of their arguments as quite clumsy forcing mechanisms - as I have stated elsewhere and in print.

[marct]

Hi Wilf,

Maybe. Nations are described in the "Bible". Egypt, Babylon etc. If it has a king or a ruler then it was a nation as such. Even the Mongols where a Nation!

"nations", in the sense of a "People" (in social science concepts, a Volk) are discussed, but you really don't find much that is similar to the modern nation-states. About the closest you get are the Five Empires (Egypt, Bablyon, the Hittites, the Mitanni, and the Minoans).

I find the whole Westphalia thing a complete "so what." True but irrelevant.

Hmmm, here I have to disagree with you, Wilf. The "so what?" is that the Treaty of Westphalia (and Osnabrück, everyone seems to forget that one !), established a convention on who was allowed to play. Warfare was restricted to sovereign states by those treaties and everything else was considered to be an insurgency, rebellion or subversion. This was in marked contrast to the "negotiation period" from, say 1510 - 1647, where you had many groups raising troops which were considered by many to have quite legitimate grounds for doing so. As Bob's World would say, it's all about legitimacy, and Westphalia and Osnabrück established the criteria that the Big Boys would accept as "legitimate".

One crucial point in all of this is that warfare was taken away from the realm of religion and, by convention, placed into the hands of the "state". There were practical reasons for this since a lot of the fighting for the past couple of hundred years had been centered around "religious authority" for war (much the same as AQ does today). The other practical reason for this was that it gutted the secular power of the Roman Catholic Church, which was crucial for both the Hapsburg's and the Bourbons.

Cheers,

Marc

[William F. Owen]

The "so what?" is that the Treaty of Westphalia (and Osnabrück, everyone seems to forget that one !), established a convention on who was allowed to play. Warfare was restricted to sovereign states by those treaties and everything else was considered to be an insurgency, rebellion or subversion.

...and this convention was useful how? My point is that it makes no practical difference to any understanding of war and warfare. Nations (Peoples) make war for political -and that includes religion- purpose. That has never changed.
Westphalia makes no impact on that in terms of understanding and practice. War is not about who is allowed to play. It's about who ends up playing. The problem is that you cannot regulate it.
Peoples making war for political aims worked 5,000 years ago (in the B*ble) and it will probably work 5,000 years from now as long as it is a primarily human activity.