About book The Shield Of Achilles: War, Peace, And The Course Of History (2003)
Reconstruction of the Shield of Achilles, by Dr. Raffaele D'Amato, and Giuseppe Rava, The Early Aegean Warrior, 5000-1450 BC.Now,when the famous crippled Smith had finished offthat grand array of armor, lifting it in his armshe laid it all at the feet of Achilles' mother Thetis—and down she flashed like a hawk from snowy Mount Olympusbearing the brilliant gear, the god of fire's gift.-Homer, The Iliad, lines 714-720, Robert Fagles translation.This is a vast and sprawling book of IR theory, international law, and grand strategy. The material within could easily two, or perhaps three, separate books. The first premise is that the world has recently (1990) emerged from a long epochal war on the future of the nation-state, of a parliamentary nation-state versus the competing systems of fascism and communism. The war had started in 1914 and had only been concluded with the Treaty on the Final Settlement with Respect to Germany of 1990, the reunification of Germany, and formal dissolution of the Soviet Union. The second is an investigation of the modern state, starting with the Renaissance. Long epochal wars are the catalysts of profound constitutional change through a series of innovations, either from a political or strategic impetus for reform. Innovations in grand strategy led to changes in the constitutional order of states, ranging form mass conscription to mass education.First, there is the Princely State, dating from perhaps 1494 with the invasion of Charles VIII into Italy, and ending with the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre of 1572. Here, the epochal wars were the Habsburg-Valois dynastic wars, where the presence of a State confers legitimacy upon a dynasty. Innovations in this time included a more stable financial system, permanent government, the use of condotierre mercenaries, mobile artillery, and star forts.Second, there is the Kingly State, from the Dutch Revolt to the Fronde, which arose during the Thirty Years War. Now, the legitimacy is reversed, and the power of the dynasty confers legitimacy to the state. We see the rise of Absolutism, standing armies, and the first Gunpowder Revolution.Third, we have the territorial state, from the execution of Charles I of England to the French Revolution, midst the Wars of Louis XIV, where the State is the best managerial power for the country with aristocratic leadership, professional armies, and cabinet wars. Fourth, there is the State-Nation, which began with the American Revolution, and concluding with the German Unification in 1870, where the State shall form the identity of the Nation. We see here Nationalism, Imperialism, Mass Conscription, and Defensive Battles.Fifth, the Nation-State, starting with the Civil War, and ending with the Yugoslav Collapse (?). This during the Long War mentioned earlier, with the rise of the Welfare State, the Military-Industrial Complex, Nuclear Weapons, and Telecommunications.This long cyclical view at history arrives at the present day, with the decline of the Nation-State, and the present Market-State, starting perhaps with the 1989 'Second Russian Revolution', or maybe earlier. War is, in his view, the defining experience of the modern state, where constitutions as diverse as the American and the French were all imposed by the exigencies of war. Thus the modern Market-State is the result of the Long War from 1914-1990. It is this present era which was the new characterization of global statecraft.By now, the state has amassed a wide range of responsibilities, leading to a sort of crisis of identity. The State, first and foremost, has to guarantee the security of its citizens and maintain a monopoly on the use and regulation of violence; it has to manage the economic welfare of its people, but modern commerce has now expanded on an international, perhaps even worldwide scale; and an alternate promise is protecting its 'culture', the ideologies of democracy, egalitarianism, and personal freedom. It may not be possible for the state to encompass the last two. The press and other forms of media have taken on the responsibilities of mass propaganda. In order to deal with these varying threats and responsibilities, the Market-State has emerged, which depends on international capital markets and the modern multinational business network to create stability in the world economy, instead of an international political body. The nation-state was responsible for the welfare of the people, but the market-state considers welfare to be one commodity of many, with full employment and 'opportunity' being the paramount goals. As for the state's responsibilities? Security will devolve to the private sector or on the federal model, or local protection. Money will become increasingly important in representation. The welfare state will diminish sharply and permanently, and privatization will take over. On the foreign policy level, the market-state has five strategic options available to it. New Nationalism, or US interests above all, isolation in all other instances (George W. Bush), New Internationalism through world peace and collective security through multilateralism (Zbigniew Brzezinski), New Realism and the balance of power (Talleyrand/Kissinger), New Evangelism and the spread of Democracy by all means necessary (Bill Clinton), and New Leadership, with US hegemony remaining supreme (Charles Krauthammer). The US market-state has its own set of strategic dilemmas, ranging from their economic strategy to the priority of NATO, weapons proliferation, a North-Asian Security Council (Japan, Russia, the PRC, ROK), trade regionalization, guarantees for regional security, lease-hire security arrangements or mercenaries, and finally strategic planning group similar to those used in private industry.New methods for the market-state include economic sanctions of multiple sorts, covert action (even though it is fundamentally inconsistent with American constitutional law), sustained precision targeting, information warfare in electronic communications, missile defense systems, simulations, mercenary forces, and so forth.All this is in Part I.The second part of the book, States of Peace, discusses the new roles of International Law. The Society of Nation-States is not always benevolent, of course, and not always amenable to intervention, even in humanitarian cases. Here he draws a horrifying yet only too apt comparison between the Kitty Genovese murder in New York, where a young woman died screaming in agony and one person called the caops several hours later, and the cases of intervention in Yugoslavia. There is an international 'bystander effect' and a diffusion of responsibility. Bobbitt holds that we must rid ourselves of the illusion of an eternal binding international laws as a legitimating force.Next follows a discussion of international treaties, saying that they produce the 'constitutions' for an international society of states for each respective era. What follows are discussions of Augsburg, Westphalia, Utrecht, Vienna, Versailles, and the 1990 Peace of Paris. These historical analogues also include analyses of contemporary legal scholars, from Grotius to Talleyrand and more.Bobbitt concludes with three possible iterations of a market-state. The first is 'entrepreneurial', which relies on free trade, migrant labor, high income disparity, and emphasizes personal achievement. Although this resembles a right-libertarian fantasy, he pins the People's Republic of China as a modern example to this.The second form of market-state is 'mercantile', with a strong protective government, with the objective being social stability. Examples here include Hong Kong, the Republic of Korea, Japan, and Singapore.The third market-state is 'managerial', which involves openness in a regional market, stakeholder companies, and high levels of regulation. This example might be the European Union, or the United States between 1940-1970. Each model has its own strengths and vulnerabilities. He concludes by offering a Tom Clancy style list of future possibilities and counterfactuals, meant to demonstrate the possible interactions between states.However, simply because Bobbitt notices the trends leading up to the market-state, does not necessarily mean his advocacy for it. He notes, as earlier, the dismantling of the concept of the state providing welfare for its citizens, (because in this state it can no longer do so), but other factors including personal corruption and the increasing probability of trans-national threads, and the possibility of a global epochal war. The book ends with a postscript, the only part of the book written after the events of September 11th, where he prophecies the possibility of small groups of disaffected individuals to cause massive harm to a nation-state, with dispersion of new technology. In a closing chapter, 'Possible Worlds', he describes future crises for the new market-state, from international stock market crashes, nuclear proliferation, Russian authoritarianism, European and Japanese demographic crises, criminal conspiracies, Muslim anti-Western opinion, advances in biotechnology, and so forth. They are all only too plausible, and many have indeed already come to pass, give or take one or two years from his prediction. This book is vast. It contains multitudes. It is perhaps a law book, but it has astonishing implications for international relations and global theory. It even cites poetry: Auden, Larkin, Milton, Milosz, Symborska, and of course, long stretches of Homer. It has the broad booming rhythms of a Spenglerian prophecy of history. It is one of the very few books I have seen which encompasses or defines this modern age. And all of this was written before September 2001.I will revise this review later and make it more coherent. All of this was almost in one go. This book deserves better.EMPHATICALLY RECOMMENDED.
The Shield of Achilles is a tome. In that sense it reflects the source for it's title, Homer's elaborate and lengthy description of Achilles' shield in the Iliad. I read this book as part of my research on a paper in which I argued that transnational legal orders are facilitating a reorientation of individual identities and therefore political change. Because of this, I was reading for very specific information and my opinion may be skewed for that reason. Philip Bobbitt's analysis is incredible. He argues persuasively the relationship between war and changes in the orientation of the state (re: government or its corollary) and citizens. Bobbitt utilizes a cross-disciplinary approach, engaging history, law, politics, economics, and psychology, to explain humanity in a way that each discipline has attempted and fallen short. Not since Toynbee's A Study of History have I been so impressed with a comprehensive approach to explaining us.While the book is phenomenal, Bobbitt's conclusions are not necessarily good. His argues that we are transition from the "nation-state" orientation to the "market-state". A market-state is concerned chiefly with protecting wealth and open markets. It is engaged in what I would describe as a perversion of capitalism ala Disaster Capitalism. Given the record wealth inequality around the world and the financial, political, and environmental devastation wrought by regulatory capture there is a lot of recent events that lends credence to his conclusion. As I said, I read this book for a specific purpose. However, I found it so good that I plan to reread the hulking 800 page text to approach it without predispositions or agendas. A willingness to reread is truthfully the highest recommendation that one can give for any book.
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Pulled out 'The Shield' recently and re-read some sections - Bobbitt is an interesting character, a constitutional lawyer and historian. I heard him speak at the Stanford Law and Ethics Forum a few weeks ago on 'Terror and Consent' which is also the title of his new book. The 'Shield' is of door-stop dimensions, but it had (for me) great value. He traces the dynamic, evolutionary relationship between the internal, constitutional order of states and the external challenges of strategy and war, beginning in the 15th century He argues that the effectiveness of internal mechanisms of order is proven (or not) in the Darwinian arena of foreign affairs. For example the so called 'long war'- all the conflicts between 1914 and the Peace of Paris in 1990 were (in his terms) an epochal war between the constitutional orders of fascism,communism and democracy. We are now, according to Bobbitt, in the beginning phases of a new epochal war, the war on terror, the first in which it will not require a state to destroy a state and which will force constitutional changes to survive the challenge. Gotta love a big picture guy. But he could use a brevity focused editor. Recommended- but be prepared to skim!
—Steve
Sweeping . . . that's the best one-word review I can offer . . . just sweeping, as Dr. Bobbitt traces the basic history of the whole concept of the nation-state from inception to circa 2001. And he does so in prose that is as compelling as a novel in places, believe it or not. I started reading this book in 2004 in the midst of a horrible Floridian hurricane and found myself not wanting to put it down or leave my apartment. The chapter on Colonel House and his legacy in statecraft is worth the price of the book alone, to say nothing of the rest of it. If you want a great introduction to modern statecraft and how contemporary Western nations think and work, this is the best place I can think of in one book to start out on that education. It's long and dense, but again, the author is a very skilled writer and keeps your interest all the way through.
—Mike
I thought that this book might be my white whale, but I finally caught up to it. Purchased, 2002. Began reading, 2002, 2005, and 2012. Finished, 2012. Phew.A dense examination of the interplay between law, war, and the constitutional ordering of the state. The first book focuses on the history of the modern state, and the periods of war and peace that led to paradigm shifts in way states were conceived of and behaved. Much attention is given to the Long War, Bobbit's name for the 75ish years of struggle that lasted from 1914 to 1990.The second book turns to the international society of states, and to the epoch-making peaces that periodically mark the end of one constitutional form and the advent of another.Bobbit contends that the nation-state, born of the late 19th century and maturing in the conflicts of the 20th -- which saw parlimentarianism triumph over fascism and communism -- is withering away, unable to face the various technological challenges of the 21st century. In its place, a market-state will arise, and is already arising. What shape it will take is still in play, and depends on the choices we make today.I found much, and perhaps most, of Bobbit's argument persuasive, and think that the book aged well. Indeed, I imagine that I got more out of the segment on possible futures in 2012 than I might have in 2002.Highly recommended for those with an interest in military matters, the law, or geopolitics. It's not an easy read, but I think it's a worthwhile investment of your time.
—Sean
