Philip C. Bobbitt

The Shield of Achilles: War, Peace, and the Course of History

Excerpt: The Relationship Between Military Innovations and Changes in the Constitutional Order

Ever since Max Weber, scholars have debated whether a revolution in military affairs brought forth the modern State by creating an acute necessity for an organized system of finance and administration in order to wage war successfully. Accepting this premise, however, it is unclear precisely which revolution in military affairs actually brought the modern State into being. Was it the development of mobile artillery in the 16th century that abruptly rendered the castles and moats of the middle ages useless? Or was it the Gunpowder Revolution of the 17th century that replaced the shock tactics of pikemen with musket fire? Or the rise in professionalism within the military in the 18th century and the cabinet wars this made possible (or was it the change in tactics that accompanied mass conscription in the 19th)? One important consequence of asking this question in this way, however, is that it assumes that there has been only one form of the modern State – the nation-state. If, as many believe, the nation-state is dying owing to the five developments mentioned above, then this scholarly debate about the birth of the State implies that the reign of the State itself is now ending.

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 not only be able to better frame the scholarly debate but also better able to appreciate that the death of the nation-state by no means presages the end of the State. Moreover, we will then be able to see aright the many current political conflicts that arise from the friction between the decaying nation-state and the emerging market-state, conflicts that have parallels in the past when one constitutional order was replaced by another and led to civil strife within the State. Finally, we will be better prepared to craft new strategies for the use of force that are appropriate to this new constitutional order.