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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68 C. Brown<br />
2 <strong>The</strong> French situation was somewhat different: they had extensive interests in Rwanda<br />
but, embarrassingly, these interests meant they were committed to supporting the perpetrators<br />
<strong>of</strong> the genocide rather than its victims.<br />
3 Thanks to Bill Galston for reminding me <strong>of</strong> this line in another context.<br />
4 I am aware that there is a line <strong>of</strong> thought in <strong>Schmitt</strong> interpretation that sees him as<br />
essentially a theological writer who places the issue <strong>of</strong> God’s order in the world at the<br />
centre <strong>of</strong> all his thought; a central concept here is that <strong>of</strong> the katechon, the being<br />
referred to in a (contested) interpretation <strong>of</strong> 2 <strong>The</strong>ssalonians 2:1–8 as having the role<br />
<strong>of</strong> staving <strong>of</strong>f the Apocalypse and the coming <strong>of</strong> the Antichrist. Although in the original<br />
Greek text ho katechon seems to refer to a person, <strong>Schmitt</strong> interprets the term<br />
more widely; in this context, it should be noted that, to <strong>Schmitt</strong>’s way <strong>of</strong> thinking,<br />
although the modern state system does not understand itself as ho katechon, it operates<br />
as such by preventing the world-unity that is a necessary precondition for the Apocalypse.<br />
I am grateful to Will Hooker for this point.<br />
5 <strong>The</strong> ‘Amboyna Massacre’ <strong>of</strong> 1623 is perhaps the most famous illustration <strong>of</strong> this point.<br />
<strong>The</strong> Dutch and English East India companies were then competing for the spice trade<br />
<strong>of</strong> the East Indies; neither was satisfied with the division <strong>of</strong> the spoils set out in a trade<br />
treaty between the United Provinces and England <strong>of</strong> 1619, and in retaliation for an<br />
English attack on the Dutch ‘Factory’ on Jakarta, the Dutch at Amboyna on the<br />
Molucca Islands turned on the English Factory there – the ten English factors (i.e.<br />
traders) who survived the initial attack, and their nine Japanese assistants, were subsequently<br />
tortured to death.<br />
6 During the Seven Years War between Britain and France – more accurately, <strong>of</strong> course,<br />
between George II and Louis XV – the English novelist Laurence Sterne describes<br />
absent-mindedly in A Sentimental Journey his attempt to take the regular packet-boat<br />
between Dover and Calais, the war having slipped his mind. Fortunately he was able to<br />
attach himself to the entourage <strong>of</strong> a French nobleman returning to Paris after a trip to<br />
London, so all was well. Even during the Napoleonic Wars, where national emotions<br />
were certainly engaged, there was a regular cross-channel service under a flag <strong>of</strong> truce,<br />
and British scientists attended conferences in France under safe-conducts, and vice<br />
versa.<br />
7 It would be easy to latch on to particular cases where Allied behaviour fits <strong>Schmitt</strong>’s<br />
pattern (for example, over area bombing) but this does not validate the picture taken as<br />
a whole – and there are sins <strong>of</strong> omission here which need to be taken on board. <strong>The</strong><br />
fact that several times more civilians died in the siege <strong>of</strong> Leningrad than from the<br />
Allied bombing campaign does not excuse the latter, but deserves a mention somewhere.<br />
8 Originally, the notion <strong>of</strong> proper authority was designed to exclude ‘private’ wars –<br />
proper authority meant the prince; nowadays it is sometimes taken to refer to some<br />
kind <strong>of</strong> international legitimation – a UN Security Council vote, perhaps – but this<br />
needs to be argued for as an interpretation, rather than assumed.<br />
9 And there is no legitimate role for rentaquote archbishops, unless it be to insist that the<br />
questions are posed – certainly there is no reason to think that the views <strong>of</strong> theologians<br />
and clerics on the strategic consequences <strong>of</strong> the use <strong>of</strong> force are <strong>of</strong> any more significance<br />
than those <strong>of</strong> any other citizen.<br />
Bibliography<br />
Anscombe, G. E. M. (1958) ‘Modern moral philosophy’, Philosophy, 33: 1–9.<br />
Baldwin, D. A. (ed.) (1993) Neorealism and Neoliberalism: the contemporary debate,<br />
New York: Columbia University Press.<br />
Booth, K. (2000) ‘Ten flaws <strong>of</strong> just wars’, in K. Booth (ed.) ‘<strong>The</strong> Kosovo Tragedy’,<br />
special issue <strong>of</strong> <strong>The</strong> <strong>International</strong> Journal <strong>of</strong> Human Rights, 4: 315–324.