Search Results

Clausewitz draws different conclusions from his war experiences and analyses of Jena, Moscow, and Waterloo. Jena demonstrated for him the superiority of the strategies of unleashing violence, the attack and the decisive battle, and also the superiority of military power over policy. He developed from this experience an existential construction of war according to which the nation and the people should replace the state. The fundamental change in Clausewitz's thought began with Moscow. The superiority of the defence over attack, the military value of avoiding a decisive battle, and the realization of the immanent limits to what could be achieved by military action suggested a primacy of policy over the military aims. Waterloo finally demonstrated the primacy of policy and the negative side of Napoleon's strategy of unrestrained violence, which — as could now be seen — has led to self-destruction.

This chapter concludes the discussion of the nobility by drawing out the similarities and differences between the role of noblemen in war and the effects of war on noble power in England and the Netherlands. War was not the sole key to noble power, but it remained very important through the resources, skills, and social power noblemen deployed in sustaining their princes' wars; through the offices, influence, and rewards they gained in war; through the relationships with others forged in war; and through the honourable reputations they won or lost. In some respects, the independent military power of the nobility in both polities declined over the period. But in helping to develop new forms of state power, the nobility built its own influence into them at many points.

Chapter 5 and the corresponding Ch. 10 in Part Three of the book provide background accounts of political development in the USA from the American War of Independence to the Philadelphia Convention, and establish that, by 1787, Congress was marked by military weakness and financial insolvency. Here, the background is given to the conflict between the Federalists and the Antifederalists over the military clauses of the US Constitution, a conflict that is analyzed in Chs 6–8 (the debate over the fiscal clauses is analyzed in Part Three of the book). It is argued that two principles frustrated the ability of the Confederation Congress to provide the union with the military capacity it needed to function: first, the sovereignty of the states; and, second, the strong aversion in the American political tradition to a peacetime standing army. In the end, these principles led Congress to become passive in foreign affairs. Ends with an attempt to locate the Federalist demand for an improved military capacity of the national state not in the context of militarism, but in the context of the promotion of commerce.

Chapter 7 and the corresponding Ch. 12 in Part Three of the book present the Antifederalist objections to a stronger national government in the “fiscal‐military” sphere, with this chapter looking closely at Antifederalist objections to the military clauses of the US Constitution. The opponents of the Constitution never accepted the Federalist claim that the independence, liberty, and prosperity of the American republic depended on the creation and maintenance of a peace establishment consisting of regular troops, and did not believe that the union faced as serious threats as the Federalists claimed, keeping to the view that standing armies in time of peace were a threat to liberty. Both ancient and modern history had taught that “almost all” nations in Europe and Asia had lost their liberty because of the establishment of a standing army, so it hardly made sense for Americans to imitate them. To Antifederalists, it seemed that if the military clauses of the Constitution were adopted and the Federalists realized their plan to raise a standing army, the people of America would soon find that the Constitution's supporters would make use of it on the domestic rather than the international scene. The Antifederalist criticism of the army clauses therefore said little about commercial treaties and the importance of military strength in international relations; instead, they approached the issue from the traditional British Country perspective, claiming that standing armies in time of peace posed a threat to liberty, that transfer of military power from the states to Congress threatened both the state militia and the state assemblies, and that a standing army would make it possible for the national government to deprive people of their property without their consent by levying and collecting arbitrary taxes – in other words, a standing army in a time of peace was to the Antifederalists an objection to the centralization of power at the expense of the people's ability to withhold consent through their control of strong local institutions.

Chapter 6 and the corresponding Ch. 11 in Part Three of the book provide the layout of the Federalist argument that Congress had to possess an unlimited power to raise men and money from American society without any intervention from the states. While the following chapter looks more closely at Antifederalist objections to the military clauses of the U S Constitution, here the concern is only with the proposals for amendments to the Constitution that Antifederalists suggested, or that Federalists suggested as concessions to Antifederalist objections; the purpose of the chapter is to address the question of why the Federalists refused to accept limits to the army clauses of the Constitution. When the first Congress presented the states with the proposal for what would become the Bill of Rights, this contained a guarantee against the disarmament of the people, as well as a specification of what was involved in Congress's power to govern state militias; it also contained a restriction on the right of the national government to quarter troops in private houses. The first ten amendments, however, made no attempt to restrict the right of the national government to raise an army, and not because of oversight, since neither James Madison, nor anyone else present at the first Congress, could have been unaware of the strong reservations that Antifederalists had expressed against the unlimited power to raise and maintain armies that the Constitution vested in Congress. This power was central to the national state that the Federalists attempted to form, and in the debate over ratification they made clear why no limits could be placed on Congress's power of military mobilization.

Chapter 8 and the corresponding Ch. 13 in Part Three of the book show how the Federalists responded to the Antifederalist objections to a stronger national government in the “fiscal‐military” sphere, thereby creating an understanding of the kind of state that was proper to American conditions. In their defense of the military clauses of the US Constitution, the Federalists argued for the need to maintain a peace establishment of regulars, also arguing that the national government had to possess an unrestricted power over mobilization; in Federalist minds, both military professionalism and the unlimited power over mobilization were necessary to preserve the independence, liberties, and interests of the American nation. The Antifederalists, by contrast, raised objections to the right of Congress to create and maintain a standing army in time of peace, and were also concerned about the unrestricted nature of Congress's military powers. Their objections can be subsumed under three headings: first, they believed that the new system of government would change the administration of the laws from an administration based on the consent of the governed to an administration based on coercion or the threat of force; second, they believed that the national government would create a large army while neglecting the state militia, so that as a consequence, the national government would become independent of the people and be able to establish tyrannical rule; and third, the critics of the Constitution believed that Congress had been granted too much power to interfere in the private lives of the citizens through its command over the militia. In the debate over ratification, the Federalists answered these objections, and in doing so, they argued that it was possible to create a strong state without abandoning traditional Anglo‐American ideals about free government; their answers are the subject of this chapter.

Chapter 9 and the corresponding Ch. 14 in Part Three of the book offer brief sketches of the institutionalization of the military and fiscal powers granted by the US Constitution, and of the uses made of them by the Federalists in the 1790s. Gives a historical account of the uses made by the national government during that period of the military powers that it was granted by the Constitution. Aims to make a judgment on the political achievement of the Federalists that hinges on the extent to which they managed to translate their principles into action when they transformed the articles of the Constitution into the policies and institutions of the new national government. Part of the discussion also addresses the fact that during the quarter century following the First US Congress, the USA had to respond repeatedly to events originating in Europe far beyond the federal government's control, and overall, drew advantage from the warfare that engulfed Britain, France, and Spain. It is noted that is not easy to answer the question of whether the federal government had any part in making this possible, but a cautious answer based on works of diplomatic history is that the reform of the federal government did make a difference to the actions of European governments.

This chapter considers the Italian political system from the middle of the 13th to the beginning of the 16th centuries. It examines the political and military powers which operated on the peninsula during this period and identifies the factors of change, elements of conflict, and the multiplicity of factors involved. It addresses questions concerning the relationships of interdependence created within the system between the major states and other autonomous holders of political power, and the competitive dynamics and consequent selection of the competitors.

From its rise around 1300, and continuing from the mid‐fifteenth century until its demise during World War I, the Ottoman Empire was a crucial player in European and Asian power politics: first as a major Islamic threat to Christian Europe and later as a weakening military power over whose territories and resources the European Great Powers competed. In Chapter 5, Gábor Ágoston examines the grand strategy of the early Ottomans, focusing on how a small Turkic principality evolved into an empire with the conquest of Byzantine Constantinople (1453). Ágoston suggests that until the late sixteenth century, the Ottoman rulers sought ‘the gradual expansion of earlier Ottoman frontiers into a world empire by defeating Christian and Muslim neighbours and rivals and incorporating their territories’. Changes in the geopolitical setting during the mid‐sixteenth century caused the Ottoman strategy to shift towards defending earlier gains, using fortresses, garrisons, and provisional forces.

This is the second of four chapters focusing on America’s perceptions of China’s capabilities, and dwelling on the correspondence between those perceptions and the projected consequences. It looks at American perceptions of China’s capabilities as a military power, discussing them in relation to the successive conflicts in which China was involved: the Korean war, the two Taiwan Straits crises, the Sino-Indian and Sino-Soviet border conflicts, the Vietnam war and the Sino-Vietnamese fighting in 1979. The discussion marks the transition from the Truman and Eisenhower administration appraisals of China’s conventional strength as a ‘candidate great power’ (in military terms), to the perceptions in the 1960s and throughout the 1970s, that China had not developed advanced conventional forces, and had been sufficiently weakened through its domestic and foreign policies eventually to require it to embark on a domestic modernization programme that led to the reduction and then ending of its support for the national liberation struggles it had previously championed. Moreover, it needed American military protection to help it deal with Soviet encirclement. This evolution in the understanding of China’s needs and capacities helped ease the path to the rapprochement and then normalization of relations between these two former military opponents, much as America’s own defeat in Vietnam made it easier for Mao to turn to Washington.

This chapter examines Europe's efforts at agenda setting. It demonstrates the importance of persuasion as a form of influence. Robert Kagan, a noted American realist, argues that Europeans recognize complexity and rely on diplomacy because they are weak and lack America's material power. The chapter disputes this claim. Europeans could easily spend more on their military but choose not to do so. This is an effective policy if their goal is to exercise influence. The norms of regional and international systems are undergoing significant shifts that deprive military power of much of its political utility while enhancing other forms of influence. To sustain this argument, the chapter offers case studies of successful European efforts to manage globalization and bring about a treaty that bans landmines. European initiatives on both fronts were opposed by the economically and militarily more powerful United States.

At the dawn of the twenty-first century, America’s security is threatened by terrorism. It is argued that security cannot be achieved until this external force is defeated by military power. Another point of view holds that security is achieved through peaceful means, such as diplomacy. These contesting views of international politics and America’s role in the world dominate the debate over international affairs. This chapter examines the transformation of twenty-first-century security into the multidimensional goal it now represents and how those dimensions reveal themselves on the global commons.

This chapter examines the application of America’s political and military power to achieve the purpose of security. It also discusses the principles underlying a national security strategy and describes how policies based on these principles are pursued.

Discusses how Smith understood the moral foundations of political states, considers his theory that political power moved in a cycle, and discusses his theories of democracy, monarchy, and military power. It rejects the theory that Smith had an economic theory of history.

This chapter examines various perspectives on state formation. It examines how and why the scope of government expand during this period, as well as the tools that enabled it to do so. The Scottish absolutist state — the political configuration of landed nobility operating within a centralized administrative structure — developed because it was politically effective. On the other hand, there were limits to its effectiveness, resting as it did on a narrow social base of active support, and lacking wholehearted ideological consensus in its favour. The chapter reviews these themes in a longer-term framework extending into the early eighteenth century. The Scottish state in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries was a success story at the time but it was finally absorbed by England in 1707. The discussion also looks at some of the long-term reasons for its failure to maintain its independence.

This chapter describes why military effectiveness is such a critical issue worthy of study. It also considers the previous studies of military effectiveness, highlighting the strengths of individual research traditions and the need for a more unified, coherent research program to allow for greater accumulation of knowledge in this area. The military power is a core concept of international relations. By elaborating on the origins of military power, an even more pivotal concept in international relations can be attained: state power. This study then raises profound questions about how political scientists think about military power, state power, and the origins of both. The key properties of an effective military are its capacity for integration, responsiveness, high levels of skill, and ability to provide itself with highly capable weapons and equipment. The activities presented offered a way for tracing the impacts of causal variables on military effectiveness.

This chapter tries to draw some general conclusions about the role of nuclear weapons in British–German relations. The British–German relationship was discussed in five phases. In the first phase, there was a great difference in British and West German interests with respect to nuclear weapons policy. The second phase started when West Germany changed their foreign policy in accordance to the realities of the nuclear age. The third phase of British–German relations was described by an intense crisis of legitimacy of nuclear defence in Europe. The fourth phase was marked by the increasing gap between Britain and Germany. The last phase was the collapse of the Warsaw Pact and Soviet power in Europe. This caused a dramatic shift of power in favour of the West in general and Germany in particular and also marked a shift from military power as a major indicator of Great Power status.