The International Political Thought of Carl Schmitt: Terror, Liberal ...
The International Political Thought of Carl Schmitt: Terror, Liberal ...
The International Political Thought of Carl Schmitt: Terror, Liberal ...
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‘the day world politics comes to the earth, it will be transformed in a world<br />
police power’ (1987: 80) and could in no way entertain the optimism <strong>of</strong> Wendt<br />
about ‘the temporary disruption’ that such a world state would have to face ‘as<br />
crime, not politics or history’ (Wendt 2003: 528). On the contrary, <strong>Schmitt</strong><br />
warned against such a development for it would coincide not with the end <strong>of</strong><br />
violence but with its limitless nihilist intensification. He was already seeing such<br />
a development in action in the concepts <strong>of</strong> the discriminatory (just) war and the<br />
enemy <strong>of</strong> humanity:<br />
And,<br />
Against world unity 177<br />
Given the fact that war has been transformed into a police action against<br />
troublemakers, criminals, and pests, justification <strong>of</strong> the method <strong>of</strong> this<br />
‘police bombing’ must be intensified. Thus, one is compelled to push the<br />
discrimination <strong>of</strong> the opponent into the abyss.<br />
(2003a: 321)<br />
if one discriminates within humanity and thereby denies the quality <strong>of</strong> being<br />
human to a disturber or destroyer, then the negatively-valued person<br />
becomes an unperson and his life is no longer the highest value: it becomes<br />
worthless and must be destroyed.<br />
(1987: 81)<br />
This world is not the World State that Wendt, at the end <strong>of</strong> his article, sees as<br />
desirable and normatively superior to other solutions, although he immediately<br />
adds that this is irrelevant to his scientific argument (2003: 529). I wonder,<br />
however, whether the civilian deaths <strong>of</strong> the recent conflicts, to which Wendt<br />
refers in the quotation given on p. 176 above,, could not be thought <strong>of</strong> (hypothetically)<br />
as unavoidable side effects <strong>of</strong> a worldwide legal (law-enforcing)<br />
police operation (let’s say led by a WASP sheriff) against criminals (Kosovo),<br />
terrorists (Afghanistan) and outlaws (Iraq). Perhaps not, since Wendt might<br />
agree with <strong>Schmitt</strong> that ‘a war waged to protect or expand economic power<br />
must, with the aid <strong>of</strong> propaganda, turn into a crusade and into the last war <strong>of</strong><br />
humanity’ (<strong>Schmitt</strong> 1996a: 79).<br />
<strong>The</strong> problem <strong>of</strong> a philosophy <strong>of</strong> history<br />
<strong>The</strong>re is a second aspect <strong>of</strong> Wendt’s article to which I would like to draw attention<br />
via <strong>Schmitt</strong>’s thought on world unity. Wendt argues that his ‘theory is progressivist,<br />
although in an explanatory rather than normative sense’ (2003: 492).<br />
More importantly, he admits that it is based on a ‘scientific conjecture’ – the<br />
international system will indeed result in a certain end-state – formed on some<br />
relevant (though not decisive) empirical evidence that seems to suggest that<br />
there is ‘a tendency for political authority to consolidate in larger units’ (ibid.:<br />
503). I do not want to engage with the sophisticated epistemological arguments