The International Political Thought of Carl Schmitt: Terror, Liberal ...

5 Partisan warfare, terrorism and
the problem of a new nomos of the
earth 1
Gary L. Ulmen
No new nomos of the earth can obtain without common agreement on the laws
of war. Carl Schmitt understood this very well, which is why the concluding
section of his book, The Nomos of the Earth, contains a chapter on ‘Transformation
of the meaning of war’ and ends with a chapter on ‘War with modern
means of destruction’. It is thus quite consistent that Schmitt concluded his treatise,
‘Theory of the Partisan’, with the statement: ‘The theory of the partisan
flows into the question of the concept of the political, into the question of the
real enemy and of a new nomos of the earth’ (Schmitt 1963b: own translation;
see also 2004a: 78, 2004b: 68). 2 These two works should be considered together,
and in light of Der Begriff des Politischen (1963a), not only given the political
situation today, but also and more importantly because Schmitt’s national and
international political thinking belong together. His mature political thinking
was always geopolitical.
As Schmitt notes, his theory of the partisan is not simply another corollary of
the concept of the political (on these corollaries see Schmitt 1963a: 97–124), but
rather a consideration of a specific and significant phenomenon that in the
second half of the twentieth century ushered in a new ‘theory of war and enmity’
(Schmitt 1963b: own translation; see also 2004b: 5). By the same token, the
theory of the terrorist at the end of the twentieth and beginning of the twentyfirst
centuries has ushered in a new theory of war and enmity. Yet today, there is
little understanding of the theory of the partisan or of the terrorist, and virtually
no understanding of the transformation of war and enmity that has occurred
since the collapse of the Eurocentric era of international law at the end of the
nineteenth century, let alone since 11 September 2001. Schmitt’s theory of the
partisan immediately raises the question of the distinction between the partisan
and the terrorist that logically culminates in the theory of the terrorist, which
again flows into the question of the concept of the political, into the question of
the absolute enemy, i.e. the foe (Ulmen 1987; Schwab 1987), and of a new
nomos of the earth in the twenty-first century.
Since the 1990s, fewer than ten of the more than 100 bloody conflicts that
have occurred worldwide have been waged by recognized states. In fact, the
majority of these conflicts have been internal challenges to these states by
smaller, sub-national groups and organizations. Clearly, a new situation exists