Andrew Brown at The Guardian posted an article at the weekend about war. I, unsurprisingly, have opinions.
The article itself is actually pretty good
at showcasing a point that is often overlooked by people who aren’t as into war
as yours truly. Brown discusses a recent study which uses computer modeling to
show how war has been the driving force behind the emergence of civilised
societies (societies with bureaucracies, networks of mutual trust, public order
etc.) The authors of the study mapped Europe, Asia and North Africa and found a
strong correlation between the development of military technology and the
development of ‘ultrasocial’ societies. This is a fascinating rebuttal to those
who, like Edwin Starr, think that war has only played a destructive role in the
development of human societies.
While I don’t disagree with the content of
the article, what irks me is that Brown is presenting this information as if
it’s new! What about Charles Tilly? What about Philip Bobbitt? While the use
of computer modeling to show the relationship between war and human society is
new, the argument that war is a powerful driving force for societal innovation
is certainly not.
Charles Tilly argued in 1975 that “war made
the state”. According to his theory, military innovation (such as large,
conscripted armies and gunpowder) made war extremely expensive. Only the
richest, most populous states could maintain the military capability required
to guarantee their security and survival. Thus the modern state, with its taxes,
and the bureaucracies required to collect those taxes, developed as a way of
feeding the war machine.
This idea is expanded upon by Bobbitt in
his excellent book ‘The Shield of Achilles’. Bobbitt takes an epicly broad,
historical perspective to demonstrate the importance of war in shaping
constitutional innovation, the nation state and the free market. His book is
too immense (the book’s nearly 1,000 pages long) to summarise for a blog but
his core argument is that there is a reciprocal interplay between military
strategy and constitutional innovation. So the French revolution brought about
the Napoleonic revolution in military strategy, and the innovations in
artillery during the Renaissance brought about the princely states.
Brown writes books on religion so I don’t
really expect him to have an encyclopedic knowledge of war literature. But
Tilly is a classic! Even the most perfunctory of Google searches on war and the
development of the modern state would have revealed that the study Brown is
discussing is hardly groundbreaking. Since Brown quite regularly discusses war,
it might not be a bad idea for him to peruse some Bobbitt.
Books:
Tilly C (1975) The Formation of National States in Western Europe
Bobbitt P (2002) The Shield of Achilles: War, Peace and the Course of History
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