SHIELD OF ACHILLES

PHILIP BOBBITT

Subtitle: War, Peace and the Course of History - Alfred Knopf, NY., 2002, 919 pgs., index, bibliography, extensive notes

Reviewer Comment
This is one of the most important books on the history of our age, how the 'State' began, its principle role - that of conducting war, how it developed, how it was legitimized by contemporary writers, its constitution and strategy, the constitution of the society of states, what is happening to it now and some thoughts on where it is going. The author combines excellent descriptions of the ephocal wars, including their tactics and technologies, that transformed it with much less well known discussion and analysis of the theories created to legitimize it. It is a perfect companion to Dr. Bobbitt's later book Terror and Consent, in which he focuses on the role of terror during each of the epochs described here. Both books are essential studies for understanding current events and future possibilities.

So what is this 'State' and when and how was it created and for what purpose? The "State' is an abstract concept that was developed during the Renaissance to replace the concept of the 'Great Chain of Being" which had served as the source of legitimacy for rulers, justified their power to establish law, and defined the relative places and roles of the members of society, during the European Middle Ages. It stands outside of and above society and rulers. It developed when rulers (both individuals and republican governments) were still prevented from marshaling all the resources of their polities by medieval custom and law from raising sufficient enough to wage war. The 'State' is a child of war - that is the wieldier of violence, both domestically via its constitution and externally via its strategy.
In the list of references below I include the histories in the "Rise of Modern Europe" series that contain more details on the periods of transformation which Dr. Bobbitt discusses here.

Forward By Sir Michael Howard
"There have been many studies of the development of warfare even more of the history of international relations, while those on international and constitutional law are literally innumerable. But I know of none that has dealt with all three of these together, analyzed their interactions throughout European history and used that analysis to describe the world in which we live and the manner in which it is likely to develop.
Bobbitt goes back to an older and bleaker tradition: that associated with the name of Niccolo Machiavelli..."

Prologue The End of the Long War and the Transformation of the Modern State
In the prologue Professor Bobbitt writes a summary of the entire book while describing how it is organized.

"This book is about the modern state - how it came into being, how it has developed, and in what directions we can expect it to change. Epochal wars, those great coalitional conflicts that often extend over decades, have been critical to the birth and development of the State, and therefore much of this book is concerned with the history of warfare. Equally determinative of the State has been its legal order, and so this is a book about law, especially constitutional and international law as these subjects 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 of these states. A new form of the State - the market state - is emerging from this relationship in much the same way that earlier forms since the fifteenth century have emerged as a consequence of war."
"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 reason d'etre 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."
"Because the international order of nation-states is constructed on the foundation of this model of state sovereignty, developments that cast doubt on that sovereignty call the entire system into question."

"Five such developments do so:
(1) the recognition of human rights as norms that require adherence within all states, regardless of their internal laws:
(2) the widespread deployment of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction that render the defense of state borders ineffectual for protection of the society within;
(3) the proliferation of global and transnational threats that transcend state 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 ignores borders in the movement of capital investment to a degree that effectively curtails states in the management of their economic affairs;
(5) the creation of a global communications network that penetrates borders electronically and threatens national languages, customs, and cultures."

The Relationship between Military Innovation and Change in the Constitutional Order

"A revolution in miliary affairs brought forth the modern state by requiring an organized system of finance and administration in order for societies to defend themselves."
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 no means presages the end of the State."

The Relationship between the Constitutional order and the International Order

"Every society has a constitution. Every society does not require a state, But every society has a constitution because to be a society is to be constituted in some particular way."
"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."

How to Understand the Emerging World order of Market-states

"This book offers and answer: that we are at one of the half dozen turning points that have fundamentally changed the way societies are organized for governance."

"The modern state came into existence when it proved necessary to organize a constitutional order that could wage war more effectively that the feudal and mercantile orders it replaced."

"Each new form of the State is distinguished by its unique basis for legitimacy - the historical claim it makes that entitles the State to power."
"The emergence of the market-state will produce conflict in every society as the old ways of the superseded nation-state fall away."

The Future of the State

"A new constitutional order - the market-state- is about to emerge."
"Whatever course is decided upon will be both constitutional and strategic in nature because these are the two faces of the modern state - the face the state turns toward its own citizens, and the face it turns toward the outside world of its competitors and collaborators."

The Structure of this Book

"The Shield of Achilles treats the relationship between strategy and law. The first part deals with the State, and the second takes up the society of states; whereas the first is largely devoted to war and its interplay with the constitutional order of the State, the second concentrates on peace settlements and their structuring of the international order." "At the beginning of each of the six parts of this combined work, a general thesis is set forth as a kind of overture to the narrative argument that is then provided."

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."

Part II provides "A Brief History of the Modern State and the Constitutional Order" beginning with the origin of the State in Italy at the end of the fifteenth century and ending with the events that began the Long War. These chapters assert the thesis that epochal wars have brought about profound changes in the constitutional order of states through a process of innovation and mimicry as some states are compelled to innovate, strategically and constitutionally, in order to survive, and as other states copy these innovations when they prove decisive in resolving the epochal conflict of an era."

Part III of Book I "The Historic Consequences of the Long War" argues that the Long War of the twentieth century was another such epochal war, and that it has brought about the emergence of a new form of the State, the market-state."
While Book I treats of the individual state, Book II, "States of Peace," deals with the subject of the society of states. The state system is a formal entity that is composed of states alone and defined by their formal treaties and agreements. The society of states, on the other hand, is composed of the formal and informal customs, rules, practices, and habits of states and encompasses many entities - like the Red Cross and CNN - that are not states at all."

Part I of Book II, "The Society of Nation-States", deals with the society of states in which we currently live."

Part II of Book II "A Brief History of the Society of States and the International Order" revisits the 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 the society of modern states has had a series of constitutions, and that these constitutions were the outcome of the great peace congresses that ended epochal wars."

"Part III "The Society of Market-States" depicts the future of the society of states." Professor Bobbitt then describes the reason he titled this book "Shield of Achilles" and discusses Hephaestus's mirror and the shield he created for Achilles.
He comments, "war is a product as well as shaper of culture."

Book I: State of War

Introduction: Law, Strategy, and History
"Law, Strategy, History - these ancient ideas whose interrelationship was perhaps far clearer to the ancients than it is to us, for we are inclined to treat these subjects as separate modern disciplines."

"War is won and international law changes..." "Or a war is lost, with the consequence that a new constitutional structure is imposed..." "Thus does strategy change law - and we call it history." or "Law changes strategy, and this too we call history." or "History itself brings new elements into play - .... - an empire falls and with its strategic collapse die also its laws."

"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 and law live out their necessary relationship to each other."
"History, strategy, and law make possible legitimate governing institutions."

"The State exists by virtue of its purposes, and among these are a drive for survival and freedom of action, which is strategy; for authority and legitimacy, which is law; for identity, which is history."
"There is no state without strategy, law and history, and, to complicate matters, these three are not merely interrelated elements, they are elements each composed at least partly of the others."

"The legal and strategic choices a society confronts are often only recombinations of choices confronted 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 into banditry."

"Today, all major states confront the apparently bewildering task of determining a new set of rules for the use of military force."
"The reason the traditional strategic calculus no longer functions is that it depends on certain assumptions about the relationship between the State and its objectives that the end of this long conflict has cast into doubt."
Professor Bobbitt writes that the major states no longer face the danger of serious 'state-centered threats against which they can organize the kind of defenses used in the past. but rather "The parliamentary state manifests vulnerabilities that arise from a weakening of its own legitimacy."

He also comments on several widespread preconceptions that are now wrong. Among these is that wars are started by aggressors. NO, he writes, wars come about when defenders decide to resist.. "Rather, it is the state against whom the aggression has been mounted, typically, that makes the move to war." Another misconception is that wars arise due to miscalculation. A third preconception arrises from presentism. - it is that "future states of affairs must be evaluated in comparison with the present, rather than with the unknowable future. In other words it is a mistake to evaluate a choice between different options on the basis of what the choices would result in now. Rather, one must evaluate the choices in terms of what the result of each selection would be in the future.
The State is future oriented.
"It asks; will the state be better or worse off, in the future, if in the present the state resorts to force to get its way?"
Professor Bobbitt then examines several current theories - deterrence, compellance, and reassurance. He describes the origin of each and some of the major authors. He also comments on several other books about the 'end of the nation-state' and notes that they confuse this end with the end of the state itself, which he disputes.

Part I: The Long War of the Nation - State
"Thesis: The war that began in 1914 will come to be seen as having lasted until 1990."

Chapter 1 - Thucydides and the Epochal War
Professor Bobbitt starts out with Thucydides and the epochal Peloponnesian War, then the Thirty Years' War. This is a brief 3 pages to set the scene.

Chapter 2 - The Struggle Begun: Fascism, Communism, Parliamentarianism, 1914-1919
All the wars from WWI to Cold War were part of one war over one issue.

"The Long war ..... was fought to determine what kind of state would supersede the imperial states of Europe that emerged in the nineteenth century after the end of the wars of the French Revolution..."
"The Long War was fought to determine which of three new constitutional forms would replace that system: parliamentary democracy, communism, or fascism."
"As we shall see in Part I, the legitimacy of the constitutional order we call the nation-state depended upon its claim to better the well-being of the nation."
Professor Bobbitt then proceeds to lengthy discussion of the content and purposes of Fascism, (which he sees originating in essence with Bismarck). And he credits Bismarck as one of the founders of the 'nation-state' itself "the first European nation-state". He then discusses Communism which seized power in Russia from the weak, new parliamentary government. It radically changed the 'boundary between state and society' as virtually all citizens became employes of the state.

Chapter 3 - The Struggle Continued: 1919-1945
"The relation between law and strategy, between the inner and the outer faces of the State, is maintained by history - the account given of the stewardship of the State."
Professor Bobbitt continues his narrative history with analysis of the development of Fascism in Germany (and Italy) and Communism in Russia (plus something also about Japan).

Chapter 4 - The Struggle Ended: 1945-1990
"The Long War now continued because it had not truly been ended. " He discusses the Cold War at length including the Korean War, and, briefly, the war in VietNam. He dates the end of the Long War "to November 1990 when the thirty-four members of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe met at Paris and signed an agreement providing for parliamentary institutions in all the participating states". - the Charter of Paris. But this is not the end of either the State nor of war. So, he asks, "what are the strategic consequences of that peace?' "What will the new world look like?"

Part II: A Brief History of the Modern State and it's Constitutional Orders
"Thesis: The interplay between strategic and constitutional innovation changes the constitutional order of the state."
This is the section I find most interesting as excellent analysis of military history

Chapter 5 - Strategy and Constitutional Order
Professor Bobbitt discusses in detail the several concepts about a 'military revolution' first advanced by Michael Roberts in 1955. This was accepted by Sir George Clark in 1958. It was then criticized by Geoffrey Parker, and then in a different argument by Jeremy Black and even more by David Parrott. Professor Bobbitt describes all these theories and concludes they were all partially right but wrong in their basic conception that there would be one such revolution (each example favored by its author). He writes that, "In the chapters that follow, I will trace developments in strategy, from roughly the end of the fifteenth century onward and relate these developments to changes in the constitutional structures of the states of Europe." The issues on which these authors based their ideas are minor. His conception is much deeper and widespread. He continues,
"I propose, in the brief historical narrative that follows, to treat the relationship between state formation and strategic change as that of a field, as contrasted with those causal relations that are usually characterized along a line."

Chapter 6 - From Princes to Princely States: 1494-1648
The "fall" of Rome created a new society with 'two parallel structures- the Universal Church and the fragmented feudal system. "The legal relations of these two entities were in principle separate."
"The defining legal characteristic of medieval society was its horizontal nature, reflected across these two pervasive dimensions of ecclesiastical and feudal power."

"Medieval society, however, was not divided into separate states, with each prince a sovereign within his own territory, ruling hierarchically all within that territory and no persons our territories remaining outside the domain of some prince."
Professor Bobbitt gives and excellent description of the characteristics of medieval society - its culture and political structure. He does not, however, mention the underlying ideological basis of legitimacy in medieval society - the 'Great Chain of Being'- the concept that God was at the top of this chain and every person from emperor, pope, and king down to the lowest peasant was an integral link in this chain. It was the collapse of this ideological source of legitimacy and resulting vacuum that necessitated the creation of the abstract concept of 'State' which Bobbitt then describes so well.

He notes, "the universal scope of the Christian community imposed restraints on a prince's reasons for going to war." And I add serious fiscal restraints as well.
"the princes of this period were not territorial in the sense of having a fixed settlement and identification with that locality and its people..."
Princely States

Professor Bobbitt writes 15 pages of excellent detailed discussion of the transition from princes to princely states including military technological changes, political and economic changes and philosophical changes. He writes that "This change was begun by the conquest of Constantinople in 1453 by the Ottoman Turks. One does not often see this mentioned instead of French King Charles VIII invasion of Italy in 1494, which Bobbitt lists second.
"Faced with such a strategic challenge (from artillery) Italian cities could no longer simply rely on their high walls and fortified towns to protect them."
"Thus, the modern state originated in the transition from the rule of princes to that of princely states that necessity wrought on the Italian peninsula at the end of the fifteenth century." Now, Bobbitt by 'prince' and 'princely' does not limit the subject to literal princes but includes the oligarchical and semi-democratic Italian city republics as well.

Bobbitt correctly notes the abstract conceptual nature of this new 'state'. Prior governments and societies had no similar 'state' "the State is never a 'thing' it has no 'legal personality' in past history.

He stresses about the previous eras:
"The State was always an irreducible community of human beings and never characterized as an abstraction with certain legal attributes apart from the society itself."
"The modern state, however, is an entity quite detachable from the society that it governs as well as from the leaders who exercise power."
"All the significant legal characteristics of the State - legitimacy, personality, continuity, integrity, and most importantly , sovereignty - date from the moment at which these human traits, the constituents of human identity, were transposed to the State itself."
There is much more in this chapter.

Chapter 7 - From Kingly States to Territorial States: 1648-1776
"From early in the sixteenth century until the middle of the seventeenth two conflicts intertwined: the religious struggle that began with the reformation and which; provoked horrific civil wars throughout Europe: and the efforts of the Hapsburg dynasty to establish a true imperial realm in Europe."
"These two interacting dramas culminated in the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, which ratified the role of the kingly state as the dominant legitimate form of government in western Europe."

The Kingly States

In a compact 48 pages Bobbitt describes not only the character of the kingly state and its rise and fall, but also the advent of the territorial state and the significant differences between these two forms.
"The princely state in Italy had been developed by families who wished to re-enforce their legitimacy to govern, and who required a more efficient means of marshaling wealth in order to defend their claims by means of innovation - fundamentally, the objectification of the state - and united this with dynastic legitimacy."

"The strategic innovations of ever more expensive fortress design and complex infantry fire crushed those constitutional forms that could not adapt in order to exploit those innovations: first princely states, with their modest revenue bases; then the discontinuous Hapsburg empire of princely states that risked decisive battles in so many theaters that it was bled dry by the new, more dynamic and lethal warfare."
"The chief advantage of the kingly state over the princely states it dominated was sheer scale. Yet this advantage was not enjoyed by the Hapsburg empire, which assembled a vast collection of princely states into a single constitutional unit. It is important to see how, despite enormous wealth and experienced forces, who were, as at Nordlingen, capable of devastating victories, the Hapsburg imperial constitutional form was nevertheless vulnerable to the escalating possibilities of violence posed by the revolution in tactics."

"The sheer quantitative advantage that imperial and kingly forms shared should not blind us to the constitutional qualitative difference between the kingly state and the princely state."

But it was more than a revolution in tactics. Babbitt discusses the ideas of Machiavelli, Bodin and Hobbes in the transition of theory from princely to kingly state. He describes the efforts of Cardinal Richelieu to use the 'epochal' Thirty Years' War to complete the victory of the kingly state. But he writes that it was Gustavus Adolphus who "more than other leaders used the potentiality of the kingly state to exploit the military revolution begun by gunpowder." "(Gustavus) realized that constitutional as well as strategic reform was necessary."

"Whereas for the princely state the great leap is from the prince as person to the prince plus an administrative structure - the prince and the Sate - the transformation to the kingly state (the state already having been objectified) reverses this move and makes the monarch the apotheosis of the State".

"Princely states persisted in Italy and Germany because of powerful competing cities in both places and owing to the presence of the papal states in the former and irreconcilable religious division in the latter. These thwarted the consolidation necessary for the creation of a kingly state in both places."
"To put it differently: the princely state severed the person of the prince from his bureaucratic and military structure, thereby creating a state with attributes hitherto reserved to a human being; the kingly state reunites, these two elements, monarch and state, and makes of the king the State itself: (I am the state)".
"But the kingly state did not truly triumph as a stable and powerful entity until constitutional centralization became a reality". "The victory of the kingly state was accompanied by the broad introduction of rationalism into European thought".

"Six institutional structures typified the kingly state; a standing army (or navy),... a centralized bureaucracy; a regularized statewide system of taxation, permanent diplomatic representation abroad; systematic state policies to promote economic wealth and commerce; the placement of the king as the head of the church."

But these were different from the conditions of the coming 'territorial state'. Bobbitt describes the evolution subsequent to Peace of Westphalia of the now supreme kingly state and the already beginning territorial state (such as Netherlands - United Provinces of the Dutch was the first).
"The territorial state had special concerns that contrasted with those of the kingly state. Whereas a kingly state was organized around a person, the territorial state was defined by its contiguity and therefore fretted constantly about its borders."
Bobbitt continues with a lengthy history of the kingly state (especially France) and then of its conflict in the War of the Spanish Succession with the new territorial states to which it ultimately succumbed at the Treaty of Utrecht.

"The territorial state was characterized by a shift from the monarch as embodiment of sovereignty to the monarch as minister of sovereignty."

Chapter 8 - From State-Nations to Nation-States: 1776-1914
In another lengthy chapter Professor Bobbitt traces the continued development of the state nation out of the territorial state and then its shift to the nation-state. Again, he notes that at a given time some states might be, for instance, still kingly while the majority were now territorial but leading states were already becoming state nations. In fact some virtually leaped from the rear to the front in the process of change. He points out that nations such as France that remained 'kingly states' and didn't shift to the territorial basis eventually lost the support of critical interest groups and were destroyed in a direct change to the state-nation form. At the same time, these states were then the first to become state-nations - France - and the rest were then forced to follow along.

"What is a "state-nation," this curious phrase that seems no more than a typographer's inversion of the familiar term in political science? A state-nation is a state that mobilizes a nation - a national, ethnocultural group - to act on behalf of the State. It can thus call on the revenues of all society, and on the human talent of all persons. But such a state does not exist to serve or take direction from the nation, as does a nation-state. "

"By contrast the nation-state, a later phenomenon, creates a state in order to benefit the nation it governs. "
Professor Bobbitt narrates and describes in detail the course of the Wars of the French Revolution and Napoleon to show how the strength of the new state-nation defeated the opposing territorial states and how these eventually were forced to change their constitutions as well. Except that Germany and Italy were so broken by religious and political divisions that they could not convert at that time. As in the preceding chapters, the historical summary of the wars is closely tied to the constitutional changes.
"But only when each of Napoleon's victim states had become persuaded that it must change in order to save itself, did a society come into being that can properly be called a society of state-nations."

"It is important to understand precisely what strategic innovations Napoleon relied upon, and then to briefly chronicle his experience with them. That will lead us to an understanding of the state-nation form he created."
"And how it differed from the state-nation model created by Washington, Hamilton and Madison."
An interesting conclusion Bobbitt reaches is that but for Napoleon's full scale revolutionary strategy France more likely would have adapted from its kingly-state form to the territorial-state form of its opponents, joining their society rather than supplanting it. He explains: "And this speculation is important for our wider study, because it suggests that a revolution in military affairs is not sufficient, without further human agency, to bring a new constitutional order into being."

In this chapter Bobbitt continues to describe the evolution of the State in the 19th century from state-nation to nation-state. His exposition begins with a detailed analysis of the Congress of Vienna and the objectives and rolls of the principal participants. In this he expounds a vital role for history.
"Every change in the constitutional arrangements of the State will have strategic consequences and also the other way around, so that innovation in either sphere will be reflected in the degree of legitimacy achieved by the Sate, because legitimation is the reason for which a constitution exists, for which the State makes war."
"Because history provides the way in which legitimation is conferred on the State, history is the manifestation of the interactions of law and strategy as history affords the means by which the State's objectives are rationalized. History determines the basis for legitimacy. "
"Every era asks, "What is the State supposed to be doing?" The answer to this question provides us with an indication of the grounds of the State's legitimacy, for only when we know the purpose of the State can we say whether it is succeeding. The nation-state is supposed to be doing something unique in the history of the modern state: maintaining, nurturing, and improving the conditions of its citizens."
"The transition from state-nation to the nation-state brought a change in constitutional procedures."

Chapter 9 - The Study of the Modern State
"Open any textbook on constitutional law and you will find discussions of the regulation of commerce and the power of taxation, religious and racial accommodation, class and wealth conflicts, labor turmoil, and free speech, but little or nothing on war". "Open any textbook on war and you will find chapters on strategy, the causes of wars, limited war, nuclear weapons, even the ethics of war, but nothing on the constitutions of societies that make war - nothing, that is, on what people are fighting to protect, to assart, to aggrandize".

"The state has two primary functions: to distribute questions appropriately among the various allocation methods internal to the society, and the determining what sorts of problems will be decided by asserting its territorial and temporal jurisdictions vis-a-vis other states. These two tasks are, respectively the work of constitutional law and strategy". "In the preceding chapters it has been argued that there is a mutually affecting relationship; between strategy and constitutional law such that some strategic challenges are of so great a magnitude that, rather than merely requiring more taxes, or more bureaucrats, or longer periods of war service, they encourage and even demand constitutional adaptations: and that some constitutional changes are of such magnitude that they enable and sometimes require strategic innovation".

"Over the long run, it is the constitutional order of the State that tends to confer military advantage by achieving cohesion, continuity, and, above all, legitimacy for its strategic operations".

Part III: The Historical Consequences of the Long War
"Thesis: The Market State is Superseding the Nation-State as a Consequence of the End of the Long War".

Chapter 10 - The Market-State
"Different constitutional orders are responsive to different demands for legitimacy. Legitimating characteristics, such as dynastic rights, that are sufficient for one constitutional order are inadequate for another".

The Crisis of the Nation State"

"As we saw in the historical narratives of Part II, the nation-state is a relatively recent structure. Indeed, the modern State itself is of fairly recent vintage in the life of civilized mankind, dating as it does from roughly the end of the fifteenth century".

Dr. Bobbitt describes the crisis and its causes. Fundamentally they lie in the "nature of the Long War and the strategic innovations by which that was was won by the liberal democracies". He notes that each of the forms of state described above inherited responsibilities and legitimizing characteristics from its predecessors and added new ones. The strategic innovations of the Long War "make it increasingly difficult for the nation-state to fulfill its responsibilities".

"The new constitutional order that will supersede the nation-state will be one that copes better with these new demands of legitimation , by redefining the fundamental compact on which the assumption of legitimate power is based".

"Three strategic innovations won the Long War: nuclear weapons, international communications, and the technology of rapid mathematical computation". "Each has wrought a dramatic change in the military, cultural, and economic challenges that face the nation-state. In each of these spheres, the nation-state faces ever increasing difficulty in maintaining the credibility of its claim to provide public goods for the nation".

Security:
"The State exists to master violence: it came into being in order to establish a monopoly on domestic violence, which is a necessary condition for law, and to protect its jurisdiction from foreign violence".

Professor Bobbitt explains how and why the innovations of the Long War have created conditions that reduce the capacity of the State to perform those fundamental tasks.

Welfare:
Modern communications helped create the nation-state, were critical in waging the Long War and now create the problems for the nation-state.

"The price these states were compelled to pay is the world market that is no longer structured along national lines but rather in a way that is transnational and thus in many ways operates independently of states". For example: "Approximately four trillion dollars - a figure greater than the entire annual GDP of the United States - is traded every day in currency markets".

He describes other examples including some related to military vulnerabilities.

Culture:

" The third promise of the nation-state was that it would protect the cultural integrity of the nation". "Here too the strategic innovations of the Long War played a transformative role".
One outcome: "We will inevitably get a multicultural state when the nation-state loses its legitimacy as the provider and guarantor of equality".
Again, he continues with much more detail.

The Emergence of the Market-State:

Under this heading he explains why this is happening.

Chapter 11 - Strategic Choices
"The end of the Long War has also brought an end to the usefulness of the strategic paradigm that structures so much of American policy during the more than three score and ten years of U.S. involvement in the larger world, from the reversal of his own isolationist policies by President Woodrow Wilson in 1917, to the proclamation of the Wilsonian "New World Order' by President George Bush in 1990".

Chapter 12 - Strategy and the Market-State

Market-States: Mercantile, Entrepreneurial, Managerial
In this chapter the author describes his concept on how the nation-state will change into a market-state and the three versions of the latter that will compete for dominance.

"The fundamental choice for every market-state is whether to be (1) a mercantile state - i.e. one that endeavors to improve its relative position vis-a-vis all other states by competitive means, or (2) an entrepreneurial state, one that attempts to improve its absolute position while mitigating the competitive values of the market through cooperative means, or (3) a managerial market-state one that tries to maximize its position both absolutely and relatively by regional formal means . This choice will have both constitutional and strategic implications". In this 49 pages Professor Bobbitt concentrates a huge amount of ideas.

Chapter 13 - The Wars of the Market-State: Conclusion to Book I
"The Long War was an epochal war. Such wars are distinguished from other types not simply by their duration - which often spans lengthy periods of armistice - but mainly by their constitutional significance". "Let me reiterate that the reasons epochal wars are begun are no different from those of any wars: they arise from clashing claims to power, from competing ideologies and religions, insistent ambition, the gamble for greater wealth, sympathy for kinsmen or hostility to foreigners, and so on".
"The reason epochal wars achieve, in retrospect, an historic importance is because however they may arise, they challenge and ultimately change the basic structure of the State, which is, after all, a war-making institution".
"Because the very nature of the State is at stake in epochal wars, the consequence of such wars is the transformation of the State itself to cope with the Strategic innovations that determine the outcome of the conflict".
"Legitimacy is what unites the problems of strategy and law at the heart of epochal war just as history supplies the answers to those problems". "The State is born in violence: only when it has achieved a legitimate monopoly on violence can it promulgate law: only when it is free of the coercive violence of other states can it pursue strategy".

"In the preceding chapters I have argued that the constitutional order of the State is undergoing a dramatic change". "This change is taking place all across the society of states". "The market-state manifests itself in three forms vis-a-vis the larger society of states: the mercantile, managerial, and the entrepreneurial state". "The great powers will repeatedly face five questions regarding the use of force in the twenty-first century, and none of them are usefully characterized in the zero-sum, conflictual way of strategic warfare. These questions are whether to intervene, when to do so, with what allies, with what military and nonmilitary tools, and for what goals".

Dr. Bobbitt writes more on this issue, the central one facing us today. He includes quotations from Presidents Bush and Clinton who apparently recognized that the change in the world economic-political structure requires change in governments. The change is to recognize that the new form of a 'State' will be a variation of the 'market-state'.

The following are five graphical representations of the six successive constitutional conventions of the international society of states.

Plate I - The Consitutional Orders
There have been six distinct constitutional orders of the State since it first emerged during the Renaissance

Plate II: The Epochal Wars
Each epochal war brought a particular constitutional order to primacy

Plate III: The International Orders
The peace treaties that end epochal wars ratify a particular constitutional order for the society of states

Plate IV: Bases for Legitimacy
Each constitutional order asserts a unique basis for legitimacy

Plate V: Historic, Strategic, and Constitutional Innovations
A constitutional order achieves dominance by best exploiting the strategic and constitutional innovations of its era

Book II: States of Peace:

Introduction: The Origin of International Law in the Constitutional Order

Professor Bobbitt notes that the Peace of 1990 (with demise of the Soviet Union) was unexpected and not prepared for. Political leaders are still thinking in the modes appropriate for the Long War. "This way of thinking treats states and their interests in much the same way that welfare economics treats the consumer: the decisions of states are, axiomatically, choices that define the interests of states, and beginning from the positions of power in which they find themselves, states have the sole objective of maximizing that power." "In war strategy takes priority.." But now we must deal with peace. "Thus the first strategic consequence of the new peace is that strategy alone must be augmented with law.".. ."Complicating this resort to law, however, is the fact that international law is itself in flux. Changes in the strategic environment inevitably produce changes in law, not simply because law tends to reflect the positions of power in a society - international society in this instance - but because law itself is composed of the practices of parties who will necessarily adjust their ambition, their actions, and their doctrines to take account of changes in the strategic context."

Dr. Bobbitt elaborates on this theme - that the current institutions for international law are inadequate. Then he outlines the content of the coming book.
Part I is devoted to description and analysis of the society of nation-states and the concepts and programs developed by Colonel House and President Wilson.
"In part II of Book II I will present the origins and development of international law according to the periods of the constitutional development of the State described in Part II of Book I."
"In Part II I will argue that the great peace conferences that settled the epochal wars created the constitutions for the society of states."

"In Part III I will take up the emerging constitution of the new society of market-states. I will suggest that American principles of limited sovereignty better serve such a society than the European concepts that currently structure international law. I will imagine various constitutional orders of the society of market-states and conclude by arguing that, by varying the degree of sovereignty retained by the people, states will develop different forms of the market-state, yielding a more pluralistic constitution for international society." .

Part I: The Society of Nation States
"Thesis: The Society of Nation-States developed a Constitution that attempted to treat states as if they were individuals in a political society of equal, autonomous, rights-bearing citizens" "In the society of nation-states, the most important right of a nation was the right of self-determination". But this posed problems when the population of a 'state' was not one nation. "Given that one purpose of the nation-state order was to use law in furtherance of the cultural and moral values of the dominant national group".
"The confusion was seen in the Third Yugoslav War in Bosnia, which finally discredited the legitimacy of a society of states built on this constitutional order".

We have seen this even more violently in the current wars in the Middle East and in civil conflicts inside many other states now. Fundamentally, the problem is that one cannot have 'nation-states', that is polities whose legitimacy in the society of states is based on a 'nation' when the population of that polity is NOT a nation.

Chapter 14 - Colonel House and a World Made of Law
This chapter of 43 pages includes a brief biographical background on Colonel House and on Woodrow Wilson and how the two came to work together in pursuit of their conception of what the 'new world order' should look like. This new order was to be embodied in the League of Nations.
But they misunderstood the dominant view in the U.S. Congress - the Senate - which insisted that the U S. Constitution demanded that U.S. participation in a war required a declaration of war by Congress. So agrement to an international Treaty that would include participation by the U.S. without such declaration was unconstitutional and not to be agreed to. Of course we have overthrown this concept since World War II and that is one of the problems we have today.

Chapter 15 - The Kitty Genovese Incident and the War in Bosnia
This is one of the longer chapters and in it the author expounds on several subjects. He begins with a detailed description of the tragedy of Kitty Genovese, who was murdered in Queens while numerous witnesses (or individuals who simply heard her) failed to act. He takes this as a case study in the psychology of those who fail to act when they well know a tragedy is taking place. Two psychologists "found that the crowd behavior in the Kitty Genovese case was very much like that of crowds in other emergency situations."
"To summarize, we can say that there are five distinct stages through which the bystander must successively pass before effective action can be taken."
"So it was with the horrifying events of the three years 1991-1994 in the former state of Yugoslavia: fascinated, frightened, appalled, the civilized world was anything but apathetic."

Dr. Bobbitt takes the Genovese incident as a metaphor for the American response to the Yugoslav war. "When President Clinton said, mistakenly, that the current conflict in Bosnia-Herogovinia goes back to the eleventh century, he exposed more than a careless speechwriter of dubious erudition, rather he showed that he was unable to appreciate just what had happened".

Bobbitt links the psychology of the individual case with that of the collective case. He then discusses the historical background and the events and failures in Bosnia. He devotes much space to this study because he considers it representative of the failure of the nation-state and its society of states.
"The society of nation-states decides, either in peace conferences like those at Versailies and San Francisco, or in the ongoing institutions set up by these peace congresses - like the U.N. - what elements are required for self-determination."... "By contrast, recognition of statehood on the basis of the criterion of nationality alone puts the ball in the court of the State itself."
"Some international lawyers and diplomats behave as though there is a world order of nation-states that is analogous to the civil order of a society, and they argue that the international community must respond in the way that a domestic government responds to criminal behavior. This makes armed intervention into a kind of police work. If anyone still believed in this vision of world order in 1992, I don't see how that person could maintain such a view after Yugoslavia."

Chapter 16 - The Death of the Society of Nation-States
Here we come to a critical issue. As the title indicates, Professor Bobbitt expounds a rather negative view of the future of the nation-state and its society here. And, of course, he is writing in 2002, before the events of the past 15 years have exposed his predictions repeatedly.

"The legitimacy of the society of nation-states will not long outlast the delegitimating acts of its leading members. Serbrenica represents the final discrediting of that society, because there the great powers showed that without the presence of the Long War, they were unable to organize timely resistance even against so minor a state as Serbia when Serbia threatened the rules and legitimacy of that society. By contrast, in Kosovo, a U.S. led coalition attacked Serbia to vindicate market-state concepts of sovereignty - specifically, the novel conviction that a state's refusal to grant rights to an internal minority renders that state liable to outside intervention."

"As the nation-state increasingly loses its definition, the sharp cultural borders that, for example, made the Danes different from the Dutch, are losing legal and strategic significance.... Nation states are too rigid, have too many rules for behavior including economic behavior, have been captured by special interests whose welfare demands higher taxes with larger loopholes and more officious regulations (not limited to economic regulation but including also for example, hate-speech laws, smoking bans, and the whole panoply of political correctness, as well as prohibitions against a wide variety of personal behavior."

"The State has always depended on getting people to risk their lives for it. Each constitutional order found a way to do this. The nation-state persuaded people that a state whose mission was the improvement of their own welfare provided a valid justification for enduring personal jeopardy. If such a state is no longer able to enforce and sustain national cultural values ..... its claim on the sacrifice of its citizens weakens".
"The shift to the market-state does not mean that states simply fade away, however."
"In the face of such an historic shift in the constitutional order of states, the society of states also had to change".

The author then discusses the many failures of the United Nations to fulfill a role in support of a constitution of a society of nation-states. Moreover the entire project as seen by President Wilson and Colonel House has failed.

Part II: A Brief History of the Society of States and the International Order
"Thesis: much as epochal wars have shaped the constitutional order of individual states, the great peace settlements of these wars have shaped the constitutional order of the society of states."
"The international congresses that concluded peace treaties ending epochal wars produced the constitutions of the society of states for their respective eras".

Chapter 17 - Peace and the International Order
This is a five page introduction to the following section. Professor Bobbitt refers again to Colonel House and Kitty Genovese. He remarks that. "The massacre at Srebrenica will also mark an unexpungable point in modern history, for it is one of the crucial events in the Yugoslavian Wars that signify the end of the era of the nation-state."

He reminds the readers,
"In Book I, we have dealt with the relationship between constitutional change and strategic change, as this relationship affected the individual state." But what about the society of states? "What provided legitimacy, however, for the society of states?"
"It is my premise that there is a constitution of the society of states as a whole; that it is proposed and ratified by the peace conferences that settle the epochal wars previously described, and amended in various peace settlements of lesser scope, and that its function is to institutionalize an international order derived from the triumphant constitutional order of the war-winning state. Thus while violence and war initiate the process of change in the constitutional order, peace and law ratify the ultimate result."

"If we take this idea - the creation of a constitution for the society of states from the settlement of an epochal war - in light of the relation between such wars and the constitutional order of states, then we can infer that international law arises from constitutional law."
"This society of states (today) has a constitution, indeed, it has had at least five previous constitutions. As I have emphasized, every society has a constitution; to be a society is to be constituted in a particular way."

"Each new period in the constitutional life of the State commenced with a revolution against an established domestic, constitutional order, though it is only with hindsight that one may say that a particular revolt led to the dominance of a particular constitutional form, because many such revolts have withered, or the forms to which they gave birth have contended with and been defeated by other forms that became dominant."

"What are the characteristics of a constitution for the society of states? Like other constitutions, this one sets up a structure for rule following; allocates the jurisdiction, duties, and rights of the institutions it recognizes; determines a method for its own amendment and revision; specifies procedures for coping with disputes arising from its implementation; and above all, legitimates those acts appropriately taken under its authority."
Further, Bobbitt writes that he will discuss some of the leading interpreters of international law in each era not because they may have had influence but in order to understand what international law is.

Chapter 18 - The Treaty of Augsburg
Bobbitt begins: "The change in attitude on the part of monarchs and their counselors reflected the constitutional changes underway at the end of the fifteenth century."

"The Constitution of 1555: The Peace of Augsburg"

These changes involved the outcome of the Hundred Years' War and the Valois- Hapsburg wars. It was the French intervention in Italy that created the struggle which ended with the Peace of Augsburg. This Peace set the constitutional terms of the new society of states that emerged from this epochal war. And this was a result not so much from French victories as from the newly powerful princely states.

"Medieval Christendom had known no society of politically distinct states. After princely states first appeared in Italy, they gradually spread throughout Europe, replacing the universal, overlapping structures of ecclesiastical, feudal society with a discrete, territorial pattern of states." "This doctrine of the essential separateness of the new states into which Christendom was now divided was indeed the result of the principle of Augsburg. This principle, which enshrined the legitimacy of the state sovereignty and denied the universal order of the Respublica Christiana, replaced that order with the society of princely states whose horizontal relationship indicated their mutual sovereignty."

"Consitutional Interpretation: The First International Lawyers"

Bobbitt identifies and discusses four main international lawyers whose interpretation of the new constitutional order he discusses.
These are Francisco de Vitoria, Francisco Suarez, Balthazar Ayala, and Alberico Gentili.

Dr. Bobbitt's interpolation of sections on the leading theories proposed to legitimize the constitutional basis of each new international arrangements with the excellent descriptions of both the tactical-technological conduct of war and the changes in state strategy and constitution is a remarkable contribution to our understanding of military as well as social- political history

Chapter 19 - The Peace of Westphalia
Professor Bobbitt begins with description of the collapse of the settlement of the Peace of Augsburg, which had established the legality of the constitution of the princely states. This came about when Prince Maximilian of Bavaria in 1608 annexed and re-Catholicized the Lutheran city of Donauworth. Augsburg had made no provision for the 'seizure' of a city, but had fixed frontiers as of 1552. Most histories set the beginning of the war as 1618 with the Defenistration of Prague.

"Out of the anarchy that characterized the final stages of the Thirty Years' War, there arose a stronger, more coherent society of states whole legal structure was redefined by a new constitution for that society. This constitution is the set of treaties known collectively as the Peace of Westphalia."

"The Constitution of 1648: The Peace of Westphalia"

The author recounts the events of the various meetings in Osnabruck and Munster and the thoughts, policies and roles of the main actors. The results were three separate treaties. The negotiations were continually influenced by the military situation as the fighting continued during these meetings. The Swedes, French, Spanish, Dutch, Italians, individual German principalities and cities, and the Hapsburg emperor all had their desires (mostly incompatible) and Bobbitt describes them all. The French and Swedes obtained most of the territories they wanted. The French had hoped for the complete dissolution of the German empire into its hundreds of individual polities but accepted the German desire to remain inside an empire but become sovereign in practice. The Spanish lost control of the Netherlands which, along with Switzerland gained status as a state. Significantly, the pope denounced the entire results in a bull, but was ignored.

"War was recognized as a legitimate form of resolving conflicts. The concept of just war was nowhere mentioned. It had become irrelevant. No state was allowed to be destroyed, however, and compensation was to be awarded to those states that gave up strategically advantageous possessions." "This last rule is important to stress, as well as its corollary that mere possession was not equated with legitimacy".

Bobbitt proceeds to discuss the concepts advanced by contemporary commentators.
"The idea of a juridical order without a higher political or ecclesiastical authority is so novel, and so far-reaching, that it has given immortality to the name with which it is mainly associated, that of the seventeenth century lawyer Hugo Grotius."

"Constitutional Interpretation: The International Lawyers"

Professor Bobbitt describes Grotius' life and works. The main concept was that the states should recognize that it was in their self-interest to conform to the rules (constitution) set out for the society of states but recourse to war was included. There was now no higher authority. Bobbitt remarks: "That is to say, strategy had been severed from law by war."
The other leading lawyer on whom Bobbitt focuses is Samuel von Pufendorf, who believed that the law of nature provided the only basis for international law. And he also notes the influence of Pufendorf on Hobbes and Spinoza. But in conclusion;
"However that may be, the political actors of the time confronted the problem of post-Westphalian law and order - namely, that in the absence of a universal sovereign every kingly state, which Westphalia had made the sole preserver of the liberty, authority, and even the life of the political society largely composed of such states, would attempt to aggrandize itself to the limit of its power."

There is much more of both factual description and Dr. Bobbitt's analysis in this important chapter.

Chapter 20 - The Treaty of Utrecht
In this short chapter Professor Bobbitt continues his analysis of the impact of the settlement of an epochal war as seen in the peace treaty.
"The Westphalian Problem - that absent an absolute and universal sovereign, every kingly state would attempt to aggrandize itself to the limit of its power - found its most threatening expression in the campaigns of Louis XIV that directly challenged the Westphalian settlement. The solution to this Problem was ultimately expressed in a series of eight treaties known as the Peace of Utrecht, which resolved the epochal war composed of Louis's campaigns."

"The Constitution: The Peace of Utrecht"

The author briefly recounts the events of these wars and then moves to the 'constitution' that came out of the peace treaties.
"The Peace of Utrecht consists of eleven separate bilateral treaties. That it represented a constitutional convention of the kind that had met at Osnabruch and Munster was well recognized by the parties"... ."There was a general distinction drawn by the statesmen at the congress between the 'private' interests of the states involved in the negotiations and the 'public' interests of the society of the states of Europe as a whole."
"The language of the new consensus was reflected in four striking contrasts with the idiom it superseded." "First, the language of 'interests' replaced that of 'rights." "Second, aggrandizement - so integral to the stature of the kingly state - was replaced by the goal of secure 'barriers' to such a degree that claims for new accessions were universally clothed in the language of defensive barriers." "Third, the word state underwent a change. A 'state' became the name of a territory, not a people, as would occur later when state-nations began to appear, not a dynastic house as was the case at Westphalia." "Fourth, whereas the kingly states had seen a balance of power as little more than a temptation for hegemonic ambition to upset, the territorial states viewed the balance of power as the fundamental structure of the constitutional system itself."
"At Utrecht, a new conception of the balance of power made its historic debut. Its novelty arose from the change the states of Europe were undergoing in their domestic constitutional orders. As the territorial state replaced the kingly state, the idea of the 'balance of power' moved from providing the occasions for sovereign action to animating a constitutional structure for collective security itself."
As always, Bobbitt describes in detail the thoughts and actions of the leading individuals who created the new system. He then moves on to discuss the interpretations of this constitutional system by international jurists.

He notes first that:
"Territorial states are so named owing to their preoccupation with the territory of the state." "The territorial state aggrandizes itself by means of peace because peace is the most propitious climate for the growth of commerce." "The new perspective, with its emphasis on human freedom and the role of human perception, was crucially influential in the work of the two writers who dominated international jurisprudence during the era of the territorial state: Christian Wolff and Emmerich de Vattel."

"Consitutional Interpretation: The International Jurists"

"The balance of power was a constitutional concept for the society of European states, and also, as we saw in Book I, played a similar role in ordering the internal relationships of the states that composed that society". "Territorial states are so named owing to their preoccupation with the territory of the state".
"The territorial state aggrandizes itself by means of peace because peace is the most propitious climate for the growth of commerce".

"Christian Wolff"

"Born in 1676, he ultimately became the principal apologist for the territorial state and came to regard Frederick the Great as the model of a 'philosopher king'".

"Emmerich de Vattel"

"He was born in the Swiss principality of Neuchael" "In this work, (Le droit des gens; ou principes de la loi naturelle appliques a la conduitet aux affaires des nations et des souverains), Vattel proposed to make Wolff's ideas on the law of nations accessible to 'sovereigns and their ministers'". "Following Wolff and Leibniz, Vattel wrote that the duties of a state toward itself determine what its conduct should be toward the larger society of states that nature has established. And what is that? Each state must strive to develop as well as to protect, its existence,".
And there is much more to Vattel that Bobbitt explains.

Chapter 21 - The Congress of Vienna
Professor Bobbitt begins by reminding readers that his view of the Wars of the French Revolution and Napoleon as stated in Book I is different from the standard establishment view.
"All the wars of France during this period were fought in order to obligate the mass of persons to the French state." "The wars of 1792-1815 between France and various coalitions of other European powers were united, strategically and constitutionally, by the political program of the French Revolution. This program sought an end to the territorial-state autocracies and the replacement of these regimes by government in the name of the people, based on the people's political liberty and legal equality."

The other states sought as best they could to copy the French. The Prussian reforms were designed for this as Clausewitz noted. The conclusion of the war brought about the Congress of Vienna at which a new constitution of the society of states was promulgated - a constitution for a society of state-nations. This new form then would be the basis for determining the legitimacy of states.

"The Constitutional Convention: The Congress of Vienna"

"Vienna performed the constitutional functions for the nineteenth century society of states that Augsburg, Westphalia, and Utrecht had performed in earlier centuries."
"These principles awaited a constitutional convention to give them legal status. Thus, once again, war and constitutional change were followed by a peace settlement that took the form of a constitutional convention for the society of states, including even states that were not parties to the conflict."

The author proceeds to examine the constitutional convention at Vienna in detail, describing the motivations and actions of the principle participants.
"The demand for an institution that was purposefully designed to deal with future conflicts arose in several ways. First it was apparent that the Utrechtian system had failed. .. Second the mentality that arose with the state-nation could not passively accept an international system that seemed to depend upon etiquette for its operation. ... Third, state-nations claimed to rule on the basis of the consent of the governed."
Bobbitt describes a 'need for a new politics' and a 'need for new principles' - and the concept of 'balance of power' plus 'the general interest'.
]Dr. Bobbitt writes about two topics - "The Need for New Politics" and "The Need for new Principles"

"The State-Nation"

"The Constitution: The Final Act at Vienna"

"As we have seen, the Congress of Vienna was not the first such convention to define the legitimate constitutional form of government for member states, but it was by far the most intrusive."
He discusses the content of the final act in detail.

"Constitutional Interpretation: The Law Professors"

Again, Professor Bobbitt turns to discussion of the constitutional interpretations of Vienna by law professors. The first of these is John Austin and he is followed by Johann Bluntschli. And Bluntschil's ideas had influence in the United States. However, his concept and that of the Concert of Europe itself depended on there being a harmony amongst the actors (major powers). With the creation by Bismarck of the German nation-state this harmony ended.
"The Concert, however, had ceased to function as an institution of European politics."

Chapter 22 - The Versailies Treaty
Professor Bobbitt begins this study of Versailies with a quotation from Nietzsche denouncing the state-nation at the time Bismarck was creating the nation-state. Bobbitt then recapitulates the description of the promises of the nation-state - to provide social security and all the trappings of the welfare state we know.
"The shadow of the nation-state is its ideology: by setting the standards by which well-being is judged, ideology explains how the State is to better the welfare of the nation. Whereas the state-nation had studiedly contrived to legitimate itself through the creation of a certifying club of other state-nations, admission to which stamped the state as the representative of the nation in whose name it ruled, the nation-state could not resort to this method. It tried this tactic, as we shall see. At Versailies in 1919, and still later at San Francisco in 1945, the great powers tried to reproduce the authorizing society that would legitimate their claim to rule, as their predecessors had done at Vienna."

"Although Versailies agreement might have been a constitution for the society of states in the way that the peace agreements at Westphalia and Vienna may be said to be, it can be quickly shown that this was not quite the case." It did not constitute a settlement consensually agreed to by the great powers who fought the war.

"The nation-state pursued a new bargain with the nation: in exchange for the release of enormous national energy, the State harnessed itself to the nation, promising more than simply its own aggrandizement and glory, it promised actual improvement in the material well-being of its citizens. Because the lot of all the citizens of a state can seldom be simultaneously improved, and because most governmental decisions produce losers as well as winners, such a task inevitably brought divisive pressures to bear within the State."
Bobbitt proceeds to describe the specifics of the Versailies agreements and notes the reaction in Germany. The victors lost sight of the purpose to create a constitution for the society of states. The allies were themselves divided. And Russia opted out completely. The author discusses Lord Keynes's commentary also.

"Weimar"

He then discusses the Weimar Republic and notes that in contrast to Westphalia and Vienna at Paris in 1919 no constitution was created for Germany. He narrates the resulting political events leading up to the Nazi coup and Hitler's program.

"Constitutional Interpretation: The Legal Philosophers"

Next, the author turns to the constitutional interpretations of legal philosophers. Once again some of these names will be unfamiliar to even well-informed students. He begins with Georg Jellinek. Then he turns to Hans Kelsen. Next come Marxists, pragmatists, nationalists, neo-Kantians and then Carl Schmitt, a full Nazi apologist. Bobbitt then turns to the Frankfurt School and Otto Kirchheimer ( a Marxist group that included Herbert Marcuse and Felix Adorno). During the later 1930's and WWII these folks became influential at Columbia University.
"The Weimar experience thus provides a national microcosm of an international phenomenon, the unstable competition among ideological forms of the nation-state that occurred in the aftermath of Versailies."

This section provides great enlightenment into the legalisms - the theories - that claimed to justify Nazism and legitimate its government philosophy.

Chapter 23 - The Peace of Paris
The author continues with a detailed discussion, narrative of events and results, and analysis of these.

"The Peace of Versailies did not bring closure to the epochal conflict that had begun in August 1914. Like earlier international constitutional conventions, Versailies enshrined a new constitutional order, which was the nation-state. But the nature of this form of the state required a further decision among ideologies, and with respect to this decision, Versailies was premature."
Namely, there were three competing ideological conceptions about this form - parliamentary democracy, fascism, and communism. But as a result of the Long War fascism and communism were finally defeated. Professor Bobbitt describes in detail his views on, 'What brought about the end of the Long War and the adoption of the parliamentary nation-state.?' He believes both the 'standard' accounts popular today are faulty or wrong.

"The End of the Long War"

"I propose, however, to offer a somewhat different account. The two approaches I have thus far described are the consequence of separating strategy and law. The former treats international relations as driven by the strategic requirements of force and the relative comparison of capabilities alone."... "The second approach treats constitutional developments as causing, but not caused by, international change."

Professor Bobbitt's conception is very complex, involving interactions between domestic and international political and economic events in both the Soviet Union and the United States. As always he places great emphasis on individuals and their personal choices when confronted with crises demanding decisions. This analysis is especially focused on Soviet General Secretary Gorbachev. And he also gives great credit to President George H. W. Bush and Secretary of State James Baker. In the end, Bobbitt believes, Gorbachev chose to preserve the Soviet State by joining the West society of states. But in so doing the result was that 'legitimacy deserted the Soviet State.'
"This collaboration ended the Cold War. "

"A Consitutional Amendment: The Peace of Paris"

Professor Bobbitt goes on to discuss the Peace of Paris itself including analysis of its several provisions.
Then he turns to the 'constitutional interpretation; the Legal Schools' This section is about international law and theories about international law and attitudes toward law itself. He discusses a few of the various schools of thought that have addressed these issues. Two categories of thought he proposes are formalism and naturalism. "Formalism focuses on the extent to which legal truths are the result of following arbitrary rules that have no necessary relation to any particular content." "By contrast the naturalist in international law.... holds that the relationship between the content of legal rules and the world accounts for their truth or falsity." The author names names such as Austin, Leibnez, Suarez, Bluntschli, Grotius and Hume.

"Consitutional Interpretation: The Legal Schools"

Then there are also believers in Legal Realism and Legal Process with more practitioners named. But in addition there are 'Consensualism' and 'nominalism'. Not to mention the 'New Haven School', 'Neorealism' and 'Perspectivism'.
He also notes that Islamic fundamentalists have an entirely different take on all this. They condemn all Western values, especially international law.
But the point of his elaborate discussion is to show that the various schools of thought on international law match the theories expounded for interpretation of the U. S. Constitution and that this is so because of the powerful role of the United States post World War II in formulating international law. In like manner, Bobbitt claims, the international law of the coming society of market-states will in some way conform to the constitutional structure of the dominant market-state.

Part III: The Society of Market- States
"Thesis: A new Society of Market-States is being born"
"The challenges facing the society of states are a direct consequence of the strategic innovations that won the Long War".

Chapter 24 - Challenges to the New International Order
In this lengthy chapter the author describes in extensive detail the challenges he considers most critical.
"The economic orthodoxy of the nation-states counseled state intervention in the national economy as a necessary means of achieving growth and other goals. Economic regulation was part of this orthodoxy and fitted the ethos of nation-states that relied so heavily on law. Market-states will have their own economic orthodoxy and their own distinctive tools."

He describes a set of views that basically mean much less state intervention on the economy. However;
"The new orthodoxy of the market-state will surely play out in several competing formulations." And he continues with his ideas about what they might be. These are the basic premises of the three forms of market-state: entrepreneurial, managerial and mercantile. His descriptions of these premises are excellent. He then discusses the challenges.
- His sub-chapter sections are:
- The Entrepreneurial Market-state
- The Mercantile Market-state
- The Managerial Market-state

- Weapons of Mass Destruction - Chemical Weapons - Biological Weapons - Immigration and Human Rights - Liberalization of Trade and Finance.

In the first three sections he describes each form of market-state and how it differs from the other forms. In the following sections on challenges he describes how each form of state might respond to the challenge according to its basis premises and policies. He comments that: "Each of these three versions of the market-state claims to be the unique and final expression of the constitutional archtype of the market-state." And that if domestic pressures on political leaders result in a crisis of legitimation the difference may become international crises.

"Trade Wars"

"The society of market-states will be dominated by three important actors, much as the Cold War was dominated by two. Europe will be the world's largest market and largest trader; Japan will be the world's largest creditor, as it is now, with a GDP that approaches that of the United States; the United States will remain the world's most powerful single economic state, the possessor of the world's reserve currency, and the market with the largest GDP".

Well, we see that he is not an expert prophet as China has replaced Japan. Even so, his description of the Japanese economy is largely correct. But he continues with a prognosis for the future of a trade war that has some over all relevance. He quotes various other analysts on the causes and results of this trade war.

"North-South Conflicts" This is a very different subjects because most of these states are 'underdeveloped' to the point that they are not even one or another of the three types of market-state. He terms them "unassimilated states" that cannot participate effectively in the multistate institutions and practices. Whatever the future, the states in becoming 'market-states' will become one or another of the three types depending on its history.

Chapter 25 - Possible Worlds
In this chapter Professor Bobbitt describes his ideas on how the society of market-states might respond to the challenges described in the previous chapter. But first he explains the concept of 'scenario building as a method for planning for the future. He describes this approach as undertaken by Shell Corp. It is important because, as he notes, planning within the assumption that the past during the period of the nation-state could be based on relative continuity. But with the radical shift to the yet unknown market-state such reliance will fail.

He imagines future responses in terms of topics including: Population, resources, energy, economic growth, technology, events, security, culture, economics, and decisions.

Conventional expectations will not be sufficient. In this lengthy analysis based on alternate possible scenarios he imagines in turn that one of the three model market-states has become predominate. Then he posses very serious threats or situations in each of three areas, security, cultural consequences, and economic, financial, trade situations. Some of these imagined events are really horrendous. The potential choices in response that the author conjures up for each of the types of market-state are also often dire.

Scenario builders and gamers will want to study this chapter for its methodology as well as for its content.
His purpose is to show that there is no 'best' model. "On the contrary, these scenarios reveal instead that any choice burdens our values, for these values are both contradictory and incommensurable ". Which ever of the three types of market-state may predominate there will be pluses and minuses.

"The Scenarios"

He builds rather elaborate stories around the three types of market-state - which he labels "The Meadow", "The Park" and "The Garden". And then he draws 'Conclusion: The Three Scenario Suites' as a result of the possible outcomes.

Chapter 26 - The Coming Age of War and Peace
The theme of this lengthy chapter is the author's view that there will be necessary changes in law and constitutions resulting from the transformation of the State from nation-state to market-state. But what might the wider results of these changes be?

"Every market-state will make historical choices among the models described in Chapter 24 and perhaps among other models that are yet to be developed. These choices will do much to shape the constitution of the society of states, and it may be that as described in Chapter 25, one model will predominate. But suppose this does not happen? Suppose these three models - or others - all seek an international order reflecting their priorities but none succeed?"

Professor Bobbitt notes that the Peace of Paris did not resolve the tensions among the alternative forms of the market-state.

"We will seek a new constitutional order for the society of states in order to cope with the novel challenges presented in Chapter 24. "

He notes that the bureaucracies of the nation-states are increasingly incapable of fulfilling their promises and therefore are loosing legitimacy. To regain legitimacy the states are changing already - that is attempting to find a new basis on which to claim legitimacy. This will result in a new constitutional order of the society of states.
"But before we can create a new order however, we must establish a consensus: that is to say, before we can have a new constitution for the society of states, we must have a constitutional convention." (Meaning a congress such as is represented by Augsburg, Westphalia, Utrecht and Vienna.)

Will this require a war?

"The three new forms of the market-state that are currently emerging are marked by radically different views of sovereignty."
Entrepreneurial state believes in transparency - one state can intervene into another that violates norms.
Managerial state believes sovereignty can only be violated after endorsement by U.N. or another agency.
Mercantile state believes that sovereignty is 'opaque', cannot be breached for any reason.

The author then discusses the dangerous results from these differences and believes that an 'epochal war' may result but might come 'in alternative forms' including the war against terrorism. He continues:
"We must choose which sort of war we will fight, regardless of what are its causes, to set the terms of the peace we want."
He believes that some sort of war or wars will come and describes various types that are likely. Remember, this book was mostly written prior to September 2001.

"If we wish to avoid cataclysmic war and invisible, silent war, (two types he describes) we shall have to learn how to wage wars like the ones in Yugoslavia and Afghanistan, using the tactics of relentless airstrikes, special forces teams, and indigenous allies."

There is much more in this chapter. The author discusses in a very interesting section the new role of media. Also he noes environmental threats, control of agricultural and industrial raw materials, conventional crime and corruption and "critical infrastructure" and public health issues.
Finally he adds:
"The revolution in miliary affairs that won the Long War is currently bringing us the market-state. The emergence of this new form of the constitutional order will be accompanied by new forms of warfare..... What is the next revolution in military affairs that is a consequence of the market-state?" He guesses on biological warfare.

Chapter 27 - Peace in the Society of Market-States: Conclusion to Book II
In this brief chapter the author summarizes his chapter structure in which he divided the study of the State from the study of the society of States. He then discusses the question of 'territoriality and concludes that its role for the nation-state will be reduced when the market-state has non-territorial interests and can be attacked in non-territorial ways. This must also change the concept of sovereignty. He continues with discussion of the new society of states.
"Tentatively we may note these ten constitutional conditions for a society of market-states:
1 - the maintenance of a force structure capable of defeating a challenge to peace;
2 - the creation of security structures and alliances capable of dealing with the problems of population control, migration, and ecological stability;
3 - a consensus among the great powers on the legitimacy of certain forms of the market-state;
4 - a few clear, structural rules for any state's behavior that are enforced by arms if necessary, analogous to the society of nation-states' bar against the annexation of any territory without the consent of its inhabitants;
5 - provisions for the financial assistance to great powers when these powers under take to intervene on behalf of the peace and security of the society of states as a whole;
6 - prohibitions against arms trading in nuclear materials, weapons of mass destruction and missile technology but that permit trade in some defensive informational technologies;
7 - practices for bribing states - by enhancing their security or their wealth - in order to prevent WMD proliferation to any state but especially to major states;
8 - prohibitions against wholesale attacks by the state on its own populations;
9- some general prohibition on anti-competitive trade and financial practices;
10- a consensus on the rule that no state that meets the standards of the Peace of Paris - free elections, market economy, human rights - ought to be the subject of threats of force.

Epilogue
"For five centuries only a state could destroy another state. And for five centuries, states have developed means of defeating other states. Entire worlds of diplomacy, international law, alliances, and naval, air and land warfare are all predicated upon conflicts among states."
"We are entering a period, however, when very small numbers of persons, operating with the enormous power of modern computers, biogenetics, air transport, and even small nuclear weapons can deal lethal blows to any society. Because the origin of these attacks can be effectively disguised, fundamental bases of the State will change."
"For the end of the Long War created a set of new challenges, and today a question descended from this conflict confronts the constitutional order. It is whether and how states can continue to exist with ever more ubiquitous and powerful technologies that can alter or destroy our entire environment."
"When a disguised attack with these new weapons occurs, and its author is not definitely identified, three deadly risks will arise:
1 - a state that is unwilling or unable to suppress the elements believed to be responsible will forfeit its sovereignty and be subject to attack and even occupation
2 - a state that is the subject of an attack will sacrifice its constitutional institutions and turn on its own people - or a discrete minority within - with violence and despotic police methods
3 - a state, though disavowing responsibility, will be deemed the author of the attacks through unknown agents, and will become the target for retaliation.
All three of these scenarios fall along the seam of sovereignty that separates law from strategy, and all three are laden with peril."
"Such attacks will not arrive with labels that tell us whether they are the result of a terrorist's attack, or a strategic assault by another state, or just the afternoon diversions of a teenager in California."

"There will be no final victory in such a war. Rather victory will consist in having the resources and the ingenuity to avoid defeat."
"We are at the beginning of the sixth great revolution in strategic and constitutional affairs. The revolution in military affairs and the market-state are entering the twenty-first century together."

"Because the nation-state puts so much reliance on law, one might conclude that in the coming era the market will replace law as the partner of strategy. That conclusion would be a mistake. Law will change, and the use of law as regulation so favored by the nation-state, will lessen. Nevertheless, the State will continue to rely on law to shape its internal order, ..."

"Law and strategy will continue to be key instruments of the State."
"Now it happens that we are living in one of those relatively rare periods in which the future is unlikely to be very much like the past. Indeed the three certainties I just mentioned about national security - that it is national (not international), that it is public (not private), and that it seeks victory (and not stalemate) - these three lessons of the past are all about to be turned upside down by the new age of indeterminacy into which we are plunging."

Postscript: The Indian Summer
"War is not a pathology that, with proper hygiene and treatment can be wholly prevented. War is a natural condition of the State, which was organized in order to be an effective instrument of violence on behalf of society."
"The September attacks on the United States provide that country and its allies with an historic opportunity, even while they have dealt America an historic wound. "

"If a coalitional war against international terrorism prompts the United States, the United Kingdom, and their allies to conduct cooperative operations at the leading edge of modern technology, this was could forestall the cataclysmic conflicts among great powers that modern technology makes possible."
"The multinational mercenary terror network that Osama bin Laden and others have assembled is a malignant and mutated version of the market state. Like other emerging market-states, it is a reaction to the strategic developments of the Long War that brought forth cultural penetration, the liberalization of trade and finance, and weapons proliferation, on an unprecedented scale."
"Realizing that we are fighting a virtual sate and not just a stateless gang helps clarify our strategy. "
"It clarifies the line between mere crime - which we use law, after the fact, to prosecute - and warfare, which we use strategy, before the fact, to anticipate."

"The United States is at war no less than when a conventional state launched a surprise attack in 1941, and the assault this time has come for much the same reason."
"The foregoing book was completed well before September 11, but the terrible events of that day were not unexpected or even unprecedented, as the text of this book discloses."

Appendix
In the appendix Professor Bobbitt wants to counter the inevitable accusations of 'Eurocentrism' He states: "The reason for this is the State is a European political idea. The society of states first emerged in Europe at the time of the Renaissance and only in the late twentieth century encompassed the globe."
He then discusses 'causality' and 'periodicity'.

Some history reference books that provide background and details

David Hackett Fischer - The Great Wave

Edward Cheyney - The Dawn of a New Era 1250 - 1453

Myron Gilmore - The World of Humanism 1453 - 1517

Carl Friedrich - The Age of the Baroque 1610 - 1660

Frederick Nussbaum - The Triumph of Science and Reason 1660 - 1685

Penfield Roberts - The Quest for Security 1715 - 1740

Walter Dorn - Competition for Empire 1740 - 1763

Leo Gershoy - From Despotism to Revolution 1763 - 1789

Crane Brinton - A Decade of Revolution 1789 - 1799

Geoffrey Bruun - Europe and the French Imperium 1799 - 1814

Frederick Artz - Reaction and Revolution 1814 - 1832

Carlton J. Hayes - A Generation of Materialism 1871 - 1900

Sir George Clark - The Seventeenth Century

Paul Mantoux - The Industrial Revolution in the Eighteenth Century

Charles Breunig- The Age of Revolution and Reaction - 1789 - 1850

Norman Rich - The Age of Nationalism and Reform - 1850 - 1890

John W. Allen - A History of Political Thought in the Sixteenth Century

Alan Ryan - On Politics - A History of Political Thought from Herodotus to the Present

William and Alan Ebenstein - Great Political Thinkers: Plato to the Present

Arthur Herman - The Cave and the Light: Plato Versus Aristotle, and the Struggle for the Soul of Western Civilization

Marcia L. Colish - Medieval Foundations of the Western Intellectual Tradition 400 -1400

Harold J. Berman - Law and Revolution: The Formation of the Western Legal Tradition