Are Nations Washed Up?

All competent historians agree that this system worked extraordinarily well in Europe from 1648 to 1914. In the conflicts of the first half of that period, nation states hired mercenaries, often from the same professional barracks, to fight on both sides to obtain limited objectives. Even with the devolution of power to the lower classes, when commoners rose to fight and rule like noblemen, it nevertheless remained clearly understood that destruction of men and things was to be kept to a minimum, because today’s enemies were certain to become tomorrow’s allies. Like members of a family, the nations of the “co-existence” system could quarrel and fight when interests clashed; but they rarely, if ever, thought of pressing their conflicts ideologically (and therefore ruthlessly) to unconditional surrender, war-guilt clauses, and war-crimes trials of losers.

Such symptoms began to surface only in the closing year of World War I, when professional internationalists, ideologically incapable of the continence required by the traditional nation-state system, rose to dominance in two new centers of power, around President Wilson in Washington and Lenin in Moscow. The Wilsonian One-Worlders held the view that one or more of the European nations at war was guilty; the task of the righteous was to determine which, and to mete out the appropriate punishment. The Leninist One- Worlders held that all the warring nations were equally guilty, precisely because they were nations, and all, therefore, should be punished by destruction. Since World War II there has been, as we have noted, a rapid convergence of the first position on the second.

HP

About the Author

Henry Paolucci

Featured Tags

All competent historians agree that this system worked extraordinarily well in Europe from 1648 to 1914. In the conflicts of the first half of that period, nation states hired mercenaries, often from the same professional barracks, to fight on both sides to obtain limited objectives. Even with the devolution of power to the lower classes, when commoners rose to fight and rule like noblemen, it nevertheless remained clearly understood that destruction of men and things was to be kept to a minimum, because today’s enemies were certain to become tomorrow’s allies. Like members of a family, the nations of the “co-existence” system could quarrel and fight when interests clashed; but they rarely, if ever, thought of pressing their conflicts ideologically (and therefore ruthlessly) to unconditional surrender, war-guilt clauses, and war-crimes trials of losers.

Such symptoms began to surface only in the closing year of World War I, when professional internationalists, ideologically incapable of the continence required by the traditional nation-state system, rose to dominance in two new centers of power, around President Wilson in Washington and Lenin in Moscow. The Wilsonian One-Worlders held the view that one or more of the European nations at war was guilty; the task of the righteous was to determine which, and to mete out the appropriate punishment. The Leninist One- Worlders held that all the warring nations were equally guilty, precisely because they were nations, and all, therefore, should be punished by destruction. Since World War II there has been, as we have noted, a rapid convergence of the first position on the second.