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

fight a ‘war against terrorism’, and is it possible to construct a new world order
with no common rules? If the rules apply only to one side and not the other, then
the result is mutual suicide. Clearly, that is not a political alternative, but rather a
renunciation of the political. Politically speaking, the only logical policy against
international terrorism, especially religious terrorism, is not ‘war’ as commonly
understood, but what Schmitt called ‘pest control’, since the situation today
exhibits the characteristics of what Schmitt called ‘global civil war’ (Schmitt
2003: 28, 305). Schmitt did not approve of either ‘pest control’ or ‘global civil
war’, but he always faced squarely the ‘concrete situation’. Given the current
situation, the only possible construct for a new world order at the present time is
a common struggle against this new foe. But this is highly unlikely without a
profound understanding of the transformation of war and enmity.
Notes
Partisan warfare, terrorism and a new nomos 105
1 For a contextualization of the core arguments of this chapter see my extensive introduction
to Schmitt (2003: 9–34).
2 Although unacknowledged in the issue (Schmitt 2004a), this is my translation. However,
shortly before publication, there were some editorial disagreements about some passages
of my translation, which were changed, so I removed my name. Indicative of the
problem is that the last sentence (2004a: 78) is garbled, which is why it differs from the
one quoted here. In its present state, the translation is unreliable. My corrected translation
will soon be published in book form by Telos Press. In the meantime, English-speaking
readers may also consult the translation available in Schmitt (2004b).
3 In the introduction to Schmitt (2003), I wrote that ‘Globalization and new, larger political
entities require a new political realism and a new political theory dealing with a
new type of law regulating “international” relations.’ I deliberately put the word international
in quotation marks, because I was looking beyond the age of nation-states.
My focus was on larger political entities, which Schmitt had foreseen in his theory of
Grossraum. The events of 11 September 2001 caused me to reassess the political situation:
see Ulmen (2001).
4 Crefeld (1991) is on the right track, but he does not go far enough, even though his
book on the transformation of war is touted as ‘The most radical reinterpretation of
armed conflict since Clausewitz’.
5 Of course, here I can only indicate the scope of the problem. I intend to pursue this
investigation in a monograph tentatively titled ‘The Transformation of War in the 21st
Century’.
6 Recognition of this fact is not an endorsement of the thesis presented by Huntington
(1996), which is too simplistic and is certainly not a solution for ‘the remaking of
world order’.
7 Recognition of this fact, however, is not a license for torture, which was official
French policy during the Algerian war, as described in vivid detail in General Paul
Aussaresses (2002). Despite abuses by the Americans and the British in Iraq, which, in
my opinion, have been duly punished, torture is not official American or British
policy. But it is certainly necessary to treat terrorists differently than soldiers, which is
why the incarcerations at Guantanamo are legitimate.
8 It is significant to note that both the Hague and the Geneva conventions occurred after
the collapse of the jus publicum Europaeum. See Rosenne (2001) and ‘Geneva Conventions’,
in thefreedictionary.com.
9 As regards the United States in particular, this is evident in two recent books with diametrically
opposed positions by Sands (2006) and Yoo (2006).