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Rise and Demise of The Territorial State Author(s): John H. Herz Source: World Politics, Vol. 9, No. 4 (Jul., 1957), pp. 473-493 Published by: Cambridge University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2009421 . Accessed: 26/07/2011 03:54
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RISE AND DEMISE OF THE TERRITORIAL STATE

By JOHN H. HERZ
S

TUDENTS and practitioners international of politicsare at present

in a strangepredicament.Complex though their problems have been in the past, there was then at least some certainty about the "givens," the basic structureand the basic phenomena of international relations. Today one is neither here nor there. On the one hand, for instance, one is assured-or at least tempted to accept assurance-that for all practical purposes a nuclear stalemate rules out major war as a major means of policy today and in the foreseeable future. On the other hand, one has an uncanny sense of the practicabilityof the unabated arms race, and a doubt whether reliance can be placed solely on the deterrent purpose of all this preparation.We are no longer sure about the functions of war and peace, nor do we know how to define the national interest and what its defense requires under present conditions. As a matter of fact, the meaning and function of the basic protective unit, the "sovereign" nation-state itself, have become doubtful. On what, then, can policy and planning be built? In the author's opinion, many of these uncertainties have their more profound cause in certain fundamental changes which have taken place in the structureof international relations and, specifically,in the nature of the units among which these relations occur. This transformationin the "statehood"of nations will be the subject of this article.
I.
BASIC FEATURES OF THE MODERN STATE SYSTEM

Traditionally, the classical system of international relations, or the modern state system, has been considered "anarchic,"because it was basedon unequally distributedpower and was deficient in higher-that is, supra-national-authority. Its units, the independent, sovereign nawere forever threatenedby strongerpower and survived pretion-states, cariouslythrough the balance-of-powersystem. Customarily, then, the modern state system has been contrastedwith the medieval system, on the one hand, where units of international relations were under higher law and higher authority, and with those more recent international trends, on the other, which seemed to point toward a greater, "collec-

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tive"securityof nationsand a "ruleof law" that would protectthem from the indiscriminate of force characteristic the age of power use of
politics.

From the vantagepoint of the atomicage, we can probedeeperinto the basiccharacteristics the classical of Whatis it thatultimately system. accounted the peculiar for unity,compactness, coherence the modern of nation-state, settingit off from other nation-states a separate, indeas pendent,and sovereign power?It would seemthat this underlying factor is to be foundneitherin the sphereof law nor in thatof politics,but ratherin that substratum statehood of where the state unit confronts us, as it were, in its physical, corporeal capacity: an expanseof terrias tory encircled its identification its defenseby a "hardshell"of for and fortifications. this lies what will here be referredto as the "imperIn or meability," "impenetrability," simply the "territoriality," the of or modernstate.The fact thatit was surrounded a hardshellrendered by it to some extent securefrom foreign penetration, and thus made it an ultimateunit of protection thosewithinits boundaries. for Throughout history,that unit which affordsprotection and securityto human beingshas tendedto becomethe basicpoliticalunit; people,in the long which possesses run, will recognizethat authority, any authority, the powerof protection. Some similarity structure perhapsprevailsbetweenan international consisting of impenetrable units with an ensuing measurability of of and powerand comparability powerrelations, the systemof classical forcesand the (then) impenetrable atomas physicswith its measurable its basicunit. And as that systemhas given way to relativityand to what nuclearsciencehas uncovered, impenetrability the political the of is atom,the nation-state, giving way to a permeability which tends to obliterate very meaningof unit and unity, power and power relathe and The possibility "hydrogenizaof tions, sovereignty independence. tion" merelyrepresents culminationof a development the which has renderedthe traditional defense structure nationsobsoletethrough of the power to by-passthe shell protectinga two-dimensional territory and thus to destroy-vertically,as it were-even the most powerful ones. Paradoxically, utmost strengthnow coincidesin the same unit with utmostvulnerability, absolute powerwith utterimpotence. This development must inevitably affecttraditional power concepts. and Considering powerunitsaspolitically independent legallysovereign made sense when power, measurable, graded,calculable, servedas a betweenunits which, in the sense indicated standardof comparison

THE TERRITORIAL STATE

475

above,couldbe described impermeable. as Underthoseconditions, then, power indicatedthe strategic aspect,independence politicalaspect, the sovereignty legal aspectof this selfsameimpermeability. the With the of passingof the age of territoriality, usefulness theseconcepts the must now be questioned. or Thus the GreatDivide does not separate "international anarchy," "balance power,"or "powerpolitics,"from incipientinternational of interdependence, from "collective or security"; theseremainwithin all the realmof the territorial be structure statesand can therefore conof sideredas trendsor stageswithin the classicalsystemof "hardshell" power units. Rather,the Divide occurswhere the basis of territorial power and defensibility vanishes.It is here and now. But in orderto understand present,we must study more closely the origin and the natureof the classicalsystemitself.
STATE II. THE RISE OF THE TERRITORIAL

The riseof the modernterritorial statemeantthat,within countries, of "feudalanarchy" jurisdictions of yielded to the orderedcentralism the absolutemonarchy, which ruled over a pacifiedareawith the aid of a bureaucracy, professional a army, and the power to levy taxes, while in foreignrelations, placeof the medievalhierarchy power in of and authority,there prevailedinsecurity,a disorderonly slightly atdistenuatedby a power balancethat was foreverbeing threatened, Suchhas been the customary turbed,and then restored. interpretation. It is possible view developments a somewhatdifferent in to light. Insteadof contrasting securityof groupsand individuals the within the sovereignterritorialstate with conditionsof insecurityoutside, the establishment territorial of can as independence be interpreted an at least partiallysuccessful attemptto renderthe territorial group secure in its outwardrelationsas well. Especially with the when contrasted and insecurity which immediately age of anarchy precededit, the age of territoriality appearsas one of relativeorderand safety. frommedieval hierarchism moderncompartto Indeed,the transition was mentalized nor sovereignties neithereasy,nor straight, short.Modaroseout of the triangularstruggleamong emperors ern sovereignty When the lawyers andpopes,popesandkings,andkings andemperors. the to of Philipthe Fairpropounded dual maximaccording which the
king was to be "emperorin his realm" (rex est imperatorin regno suo) and was no longer to "recognize any superior"(superiorem non recog-

in noscens),it was the beginningof a development the courseof which,

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in McIlwain's words, "Independence de facto was ultimately translated into a sovereignty de jure."' But centuries of disturbanceand real anarchy ensued during which the problems of rulership and security remained unsettled. The relative protection which the sway of moral standardsand the absence of highly destructive weapons had afforded groups and individuals in the earlier Middle Ages gave way to total insecurity when gunpowder was invented and common standards broke down. Out of the internal and external turmoil during the age of religious and civil wars, a "neutralist"central power eventually managed to establish itself in and for each of the different territorieslike so many rochers de bronze. The idea that a territorialcoexistence of states, based on the power of the territorialprinces, might afford a better guarantee of peace than the Holy Roman Empire was already widespread at the height of the Middle Ages when the emperor proved incapable of enforcing the peace.2 But territorialitycould hardly prevail so long as the knight in his castle (that medieval unit of impermeability) was relatively immune from attack, as was the medieval city within its walls. Only with a developing money economy were overlords able to free themselves from dependence on vassalsand lay the foundations of their own power by establishing a professional army. Infantry and artillery now proved superior to old-style cavalry, firearms prevailed over the old weapons. As in all cases of radically new developments in military technology, the "gunpowder revolution"caused a real revolution in the superstructure of economic, social, and political relationships because of its impact on the units of protection and security. A feeling of insecurity swept all Europe.3Though a Machiavelli might establish new rules as to how to gain and maintain power, there still followed more than a century of unregulated, ideological "total" wars inside and among
I932, p. 268.
2

1 Charles H. McIlwain, The Growth of Political Thought in the West, New York, F. A. von der Heydte, Die Geburtsstunde souveranenStaates,Regensburg,I952, des
277,

pp. IM3ff.,

293ff.

expressed the feeling of despair which invaded the "old powers" of chivalry when gunpowder destroyedthe foundations of their system, in terms reminding one of present-daydespair in the face of the destructive forces loosed upon our own world: "Oh! curs'd device! base implement of death! Framed in the black Tartarean realms beneath! By Beelzebub'smalicious art design'd To ruin all the race of human kind." Quoted from Orlando Furioso by Felix Gilbert, in Edward M. Earle, ed., Makers of Modern Strategy, Princeton, N.J., I943, p. 4.

3 Ariosto

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Before countries until the new units of powerwere clearlyestablished. could claim to be recognizedas rulersof large old or new sovereigns how far, on the basisof their new miliareas,it had to be determined tarypower,theywere ableto extendtheircontrolgeographically.4 statecame finally to occupythe place that the castle The large-area held as a unit of impenetrability. But or fortifiedtown had previously consolidated until all independent the new unit couldnot be considered and, in their place, fortresses fortifications within it had disappeared of lining the circumference the countryhad beenbuilt by the new cenIf our tralpowerand mannedby its armedforces.5 we contrast present entireworld regions systemof basesand similaroutpostssurrounding we nation-states, perhaps can visualize with what are todaysmall-scale the what the hard shell of frontierfortifications consolidating then territorial statesmeantby way of extendingpowerunits in large-scale the age of absolutism. They became,in the words of Frederickthe There Great,"mightynails which hold a ruler'sprovincestogether." within. War becamea regularized milnow was peaceand protection only the breakingof the shell permittedinterference itaryprocedure; of country. with whathad now becomethe internalaffairs another of state In this way was established basicstructure the territorial the which was to last throughoutthe classical periodof the modernstate a of system.Upon this foundation new systemand new concepts internationalrelationscould arise.And as early as the secondhalf of the observer succeeded tying up the in seventeenth centurya perspicacious structure territorial of new concepts with the underlying statehood.
III. THE NATURE OF TERRITORIALITY It was hardly a coincidence that this connection was established shortly after the end of the Thirty Years' War, when formal sanction had been given to territorialsovereignty in the Westphalian Peace. For here was the turning point, the Great Divide between what were still partially medieval situations reflecting a certain permeability of the rising nation-state (when, for instance, outside powers could still ally themselves with frondes within a country against that country's sovereign) and the modern era of closed units no longer brooking such
interference.'
4 On this, see GarrettMattingly,RenaissanceDiplomacy, Boston, I955, pp. 59ff., 121ff.,
205ff. 5 See

Friedrich Meinecke, Die Idee der Staatsraisonin der neueren Geschichte,Munich and Berlin, I925, pp. 241ff. 6 The emergence of "non-intervention" a legal concept illustrates this transition. as

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to of The clarification the natureof territoriality which we referred essayby Leibniz,writtenfor aboveis found in a little and little-known an entirelypragmatic purpose-namely,to provethe right of legation ruler (the Duke of Hanover) in whose servicethe of the territorial from the situadirectly problem derived thenwas.7 Leibniz' philosopher for This settlement, all practition createdby the Peaceof Westphalia. upon thoseprinces sovereign independence had cal purposes, conferred who formallywerestillincludedin the Empire;yet it had not abolished of feudal structure the Empireitself, essentially the long-established, and with its allegiancesand jurisdictions, duties of membership, its of Thus framework government. workable evenits clumsyand scarcely rulersin Europewere someterritorial some of the factuallysovereign Were they now "sovereign" not? or how still undera higherauthority. What accountedfor sovereignty? failed to see the problemin this light. The Leibniz'contemporaries muddledstateof affairs was made to orderfor thosejuristsand others with the aid of sterileor obsolete who arguedfine pointsperennially to concepts.Leibniz,instead,proceeded study "whatactuallyhappens in the world today,"and as a resultcould boastof being "the first to have found the valid definitionof sovereignty."8 was As he saw it, the firstconditionfor sovereignty a minimumsize could of territory. Minuscule at principalities, that time still abundant, eachotheras equally not claimto be on a parwith thosethatrecognized in and sovereign respectto peaceand war, alliances, the generalaffairs territory, couldat best, they sufficient because, possessing not of Europe, with theirgarrisons, But only maintaininternalorder.9 thereremained the chief problem:how to define the statusof those rulerswho, beof in causeof theirmembership the Empire,were subjects the emperor. Couldone be "sovereign" "subject" the sametime? If not, what and at was the statusof these"subject" with that of their rulersas compared
A complete change in the meaning of the term occurred in the brief period between the time of Grotius and that of Pufendorf. Grotius, writing during the last phase of the pre-modern era of religious and "internationalcivil" wars and still thinking in terms of "just"and "unjust"wars, considereda ruler entitled to intervene in the affairs of another sovereign if it was necessary to defend oppressed subjects of the latter; Pufendorf, barely fifty years later, rejected such interference in the "domestic affairs" of another sovereign as a violation of the sovereign's exclusive jurisdiction over his territoryand all it contained. See Walter Schiffer, The Legal Community of Mankind, New York, 1954, pp. 34f., 56. 7 "Entretiensde Philarete et d'Eugene sur le droit d'Ambassade"; quoted here from Werke, Ist series, iii, Hanover, i864, pp. 33Iff.
8

Ibid., pp. 340,

342.

9 Ibid., p. 349.

THE TERRITORIALSTATE

479

"sovereign"European brethren? If so, what did their subjection to the emperor amount to? These questions were further complicated by the fact that at every European court, and in the Empire as well, there were certain high dignitaries,often called "princes,""dukes,"etc., who customarily held the rank of "sovereign."It was through this maze of relationshipsthat Leibniz arrived at his definitions. He elaboratedhis concept of sovereignty by distinguishing it from "majesty."Majesty, the authority which the emperor has qua emperor over the Empire's members, consists of a number of jurisdictions that confer the right to demand obedience and involve duties of fealty, but it is not sovereignty. Why not? Simply because, with all its supreme authority, majesty does not involve an "actual and present power to constrain" subjects on their own territories. Their territory, in other words, is impermeable. The subject, on the other hand, if he is a territorialruler, is sovereign becausehe has the power to constrainhis subjects, while not being so constrainableby superiorpower. The decisive criterionthus is actual control of one's "estates" one's military power, by which excludes any other power within and without. Contrariwise,the absence of such forces of his own on his subjects' territories accounts for the absence of "sovereignty"in the emperor's "majesty."He can enforce his authority or rights only by applying his own or other sovereigns' forces from the outside, "by means of war." But in doing so, his condition is no different from that of any other sovereign vis-a-vis his fellow-rulers,for war is a contest which can be inauguratednot only by majesties but by any sovereign ruler. And force of arms may constrain a sovereign outside the Empire quite as well as one inside; in fact, war constitutesthe only way in which even sovereigns can be constrained.10 perceiving that the emperor's power to enforce his auBy thority was actually reduced to means of war, Leibniz was in a position to demonstratethat any and all rulers of impermeable territory,whatever their status in regard to imperial authority, were equal in their sovereign status. This capacity also distinguished them from those dignitaries who were sovereigns in name only. Leibniz, by way of example, referred to the non-sovereign status of certain papal "princes," contrasting it with that of sovereign princes: "Should His Holiness desire to make . . . [the papal princes] obey, he has merely to send out his 'sbirros'[bailiffs],
10 "La souverainete est un pouvoir legitime et ordinaire de contraindre les sujets a obeir, sans qu'on puisse etre contraint soy meme si ce n'est par une guerre" (ibid., p. 352).

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but in orderto constrain... [the sovereign princes]he would need an a if armyand cannon."1Similarly, the Empirewantsto constrain sovin ereignmember,"whatwould begin as courtprocedure an imperial In Tribunal,in executionwould amountto a war."12 the new age of in those superior law no longercould use the machinery territoriality, rulers.13 (courts,etc.) to enforceclaimsagainstterritorial of government betweensovIn morerecenttimes,this has come to be the relationship (like the organizations of as ereignnation-states members international as of Nationsor theUnitedNations) andtheorganizations such. League
RELATIONS STATE IN INTERNATIONAL IV. THE TERRITORIAL

which charand resultedthe concepts institutions From territoriality of acterizedthe interrelations sovereignunits, the modern state syslaw, for instance,could now develop.Like tem. Moderninternational law the international systemthat producedit, international has often becauseof its claim to bind been considered inherentlycontradictory sovereignunits. But whetheror not we deny to it for this reasonthe to of name and character genuinelaw, it is important see it in its connatureof the state systemthat it served. nection with the territorial to, as Only then can it be understood a systemof rulesnot contrary but of implementing,the sovereignindependence states.Only to the exand their territoriality took into accounttheir sovtent that it reflected law ereigntycould international developin moderntimes.For its general rules and principlesdeal primarilywith the delimitationof the of It jurisdiction countries. thus implementsthe de facto conditionof territorial by impenetrability morecloselydefiningunit, area,and conSuch a law must reflect,ratherthan reguditions of impenetrability. law late. As one authorhas rightly remarked,"International really and amountsto laying down the principleof nationalsovereignty defor It is ducingthe consequences."14 not for this reasonsuperfluous, sov12 Ibid., p. 358. emphasis on constraint as a primary prerequisite of sovereignty might strike later observers as over-materialistic. But one should remember that the rocher de bronze of sovereignty was only then being established, not only against outside interference but also against still recalcitrant feudal powers within the territorial ruler's realm, and even in the latter case frequently by force of arms and armed forces which to the defeated may well have appeared as something very much like occupation forces. As a matter of fact, "garrisoning" is a key word in Leibniz' arguments: "As long as one has the right to be master in one's own house, and no superior has the right to maintain garrisons there and deprive one of the exercise of one's right of peace, war, and alliances, one has that independence which sovereignty presupposes (liberte requise

"Ibid., pi 354*

13Leibniz'

a la SouverainetW)" (ibid., p. 356).

14Francois

Laurent, as quoted by Schiffer, op.cit., p. I57.

THE TERRITORIALSTATE

481

ereign units must know in some detail where their jurisdictions end and those of other units begin; without such standards,nations would be involved in constant strife over the implementation of their independence. But it was not only this mutual legal accommodationwhich rendered possible a relatively peaceful coexistence of nations. War itself, the very phenomenon which reflected, not the strength, but the limitations of impermeability, was of such a nature as to maintain at least the principle of territoriality.War was limited not only in conduct but also in objectives. It was not a process of physical or political annihilation but a contest of power and will in which the interests,but not the existence, of the contestants were at stake. Now that we approach the era of absolute exposure, without walls or moats, where penetration will mean not mere damage or change but utter annihilation of life and way of life, it may dawn on us that what has vanished with the age of sovereignty and "power politics" was not entirely adverse in nature and effects. Among other "conservative" features of the classical system, we notice one only in passing: the balance of power. It is only recently that emphasis has shifted from a somewhat one-sided concern with the negative aspectsof the balance-its uncertainty,its giving rise to unending conflicts and frequent wars, etc.-to its protective effect of preventing the expansionist capacity of power from destroying other power altogether.15 at the time of its perfection in statecraftand diplomacy, But there were even theories (not lived up to in practice, of course) about the legal obligationsof nations to form barriersagainst hegemony power in the common interest.16 More fundamental to the conservativestructureof the old system was its characteras a community. Forming a comparativelypacified whole, Europe was set off sharply against the world outside, a world beyond those lines which, by common agreement, separateda community based on territorialityand common heritage from anarchy, where the law of nature reigned and no standardsof civilization applied. Only recently have the existence and role of so-called "amity lines" been rediscovered, lines which were drawn in the treaties of the early modern period and which separatedEuropeanterritories,where the rules of war and peace
my Political Realism and Political Idealism, Chicago, I951, pp. 206-2I. J. von Elbe, "Die Wiederherstellungder Gleichgewichtsordnungin Europa durch den Wiener Kongress," Zeitschrift fjr auslindisches dflentliches Recht und V6lker16

15 See

recht, iv (0934), pp. 226ff.

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WORLD POLITICS

were to prevail, from overseas territoriesand areas.'7There was to be "no peace beyond the line"; that is, European powers, although possibly at peace in Europe, continued to be homo homini lupus abroad. This practice made it easier for the European family of nations to observe self-denying standardsat home by providing them with an outlet in the vast realm discovered outside Europe. While the practice of drawing amity lines subsequently disappeared, one chief function of overseas expansion remained: a European balance of power could be maintained or adjustedbecauseit was relatively easy to divert European conflicts into overseasdirections and adjust them there. Thus the openness of the world contributedto the consolidation of the territorialsystem. The end of the "world frontier"and the resulting closednessof an interdependent world inevitably affected this system's effectiveness. Another characteristicof the old system's protective nature may be seen in the almost complete absence of instances in which countries were wiped out in the course of wars or as a consequence of other power-political events. This, of course, refers to the territorial units at home only, not to the peoples and state units beyond the pale abroad; and to the complete destruction of a state's independent existence, not to mere loss of territoryor similar changes, which obviously abounded in the age of power politics. Evidence of this is to be found not only in a legal and political ideology that denied the permissibilityof conquest at home while recognizing it as a title for the acquisition of territorial jurisdiction abroad.'8 For such a doctrinehad its non-ideological foundation in the actual difference between European and non-European politics so far as their territorialitywas concerned. European states were impermeable in the sense here outlined, while most of those overseaswere easily penetrable by Europeans. In accordance with these circumstances, international politics in Europe knew only rare and exceptional instances of actual annihilation through conquest or similar forceful means. Prior to the twentieth century, there were indeed the Napoleonic conquests, but I submit that this is a case where the exception confirms the rule. The Napoleonic system, as a hegemonial one, was devised to de17 See Carl Schmitt, Der Nomos der Erde, Cologne, I950, pp. 6off.; also W. Schoenborn, "fber Entdeckung als Rechtstitel v6lkerrechtlichen Gebietserwerbs,"in D. S.

Constantinopoulos and H. Wehberg, eds., Gegenwartsprobleme des internationalen Rechts und der Rechtsphilosophie, Hamburg, I953, pp. 239ff. 18 On this, see M. M. McMahon, Conquest and Modern International Law, Washington, D.C., I940; M. F. Lindlay, The Acquisition and Government of Backward Territory in International Law, London, I926; and Robert Langer, Seizure of Territory,

Princeton, N.J.,

I947.

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and balancedpower as stroy the established system of territoriality "demonic" such.Consequently, Napoleonand his policiesappeared to as contemporaries,19 well as to a nineteenthcenturywhich experienced of the restoration the earliersystem.During that centuryoccurred Bisof marck'sannexations some Germanunits into Prussiain pursuance As of German unification. in Napoleon'scase,they appeared abnormal to many of his contemporaries, althoughthe issue of nationalunificaBesidesthese,there was intion tendedto mitigatethis impression.20 of deedthepartition Poland,andconsidering lamentable lasting the and and it impression the universalbad conscience producedeven among the rulingnationsin a century used to quitea bit of international skulduggery,again one may well claim an exceptional character that for
event.21

What, in particular, accountsfor this remarkable stability?Terriof toriality-the establishment defensible units,internallypacifiedand hard-shell On rimmed-may be calledits foundation. this foundation, two phenomenapermittedthe system to become more stable than might otherwisehave been the case:the prevalence the legitimacy of principleand, subsequently, nationalism. Legitimacyimplied that the dynastiesruling the territorial states of old Europemutually recognized eachotheras rightfulsovereigns. of Deprivingone sovereign his rightsby force could not but appearto destroythe very principleon which the rights of all of them rested. With the rise of nationalism, witnessthe personalization the we of units as self-determining, nationalgroups.Nationalismnow made it to appearas abhorrent deprivea sovereignnationof its independence as to despoila legitimaterulerhad appeared before.States,of course, had firstto become"nation-states," considering themselves representas ing specificnationality groups,which explainswhy in the two regions of Europewhere largernumbersof old units stood in the way of national unificationtheir demise encountered little objection.In most instances, however,the riseof nationalism to the emergence new led of states,which split away from multinational colonialempires.This or
19 As witness the impression made on contemporaries the destructionof the first by ancient European unit to fall victim to these policies-Venice. 20 See Erich Eyck, Bismarck,ii, Zurich, I943, pp. 305ff. 21 Except for these cases, we find only marginal instances of complete obliteration. The annexation of the Free City of Krakow by Russia eliminated a synthetic creation of the Vienna settlement. British conquest of the Boer Republics, if considered as an instance of annihilation of European polities in view of the European origin of the inhabitants,happened at the very rim of the world, as it were, remote from the continent where the practice of non-annihilationprevailed.

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meantthe extension the European of of all principle "non-obliteration" over the world.It is perhapssignificantthat even in our century,and evenafterthe turmoilof attempted worldconquest resulting and world wars,a point has been made of restoring most minute and inconthe of siderable sovereignties, down to Luxembourg and Albania.22 of This hypertrophy nation-states presentednew problems-above all, thatof an improved For systemof protection. by now it hadbecome clearthat the protective functionof the old systemwas only a relative blessingafter all. Continuedexistenceof statesas such was perhaps moreor lessguaranteed. powerand influence, But ecostatus, frontiers, nomic interests-in short,everythingthat constituted life and inthe terestsof nationsbeyondbareexistence-were alwaysat the mercyof much of the relativestabilwhatpowerpoliticswrought.Furthermore, of stateshad been due to the ity andpoliticalequilibrium the territorial of extension Westerncontrolovertheworld.Whenwhatcouldbe peneor as tratedhad been subjugated, assimilated, established fellow "sovHence ereign"states,the old unitswere thrownbackupon themselves. the demandfor a new systemwhich would offermore securityto old and new nations:collectivesecurity. I proposeto view collectivesecuritynot as the extremeoppositeof powerpolitics,but as an attemptto maintain,and rendermore secure, the impermeability whatwere stillterritorial of states. an age which To took territoriality granted,replacingpower politicswith collective for would indeedappearto be a radicaldeparture. security From the vantage point of the nuclearage, however,a plan to protectindividual sovereignties collectiveguarantees continuingsovereigntyapby for pears questionable becauseof its innovating,but becauseof its not nature. Its conservatism in its basic objective:the conservative, lies protectionof the hard-shell territorial structure its members,or, as of the core articleof the Covenantof the League of Nations put it, its guaranteeof their "territorial integrity and political independence" againstexternalaggression. beginningof air war and the increasThe ing economicinterdependence nationshad indicatedby the end of of World War I that the old-stylemilitarybarriers might be by-passed. If territorial unitswereto be preserved the future,it wouldbe accomin plishedless by relianceon individualdefensepotentialsthan by marshalingcollectivepower in orderto preserve individualpowers.
22 Cf. also the remarkable stability of state units in the Western Hemisphere qua independent units; unstable as some of them are domestically,their sovereign identity as units appears almost sacrosanct.

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But since the idea of organizing a genuine supranationalforce-an international police force-was rejected, the League had to cling to classical arrangements insofar as the procedures of protection were concerned. The guarantee to the individual states was to be the formation of the "Grand Coalition" of all against the isolated aggressor, which presupposedthe maintenanceof a certain level of armed strength by the member states. A member without that minimum of military strength would be a liability rather than an asset to the organizationin Geneva parlance, a "consumer"and not a "producer"of security.23 Thus classical concepts (the sovereignty and independence of nationstates) as well as classical institutions (in particular, hard-shell defensibility) were to be maintained under the new system. Whether there ever was a chance for the system to be effective in practice is beside the point here. It is sufficientto realize how closely it was tied to the underlying structure as well as to the prevailing concepts and policies of the territorialage.
STATE V. THE DECLINE OF THE TERRITORIAL

Beginning with the nineteenth century, certain trends became visible which tended to endanger the functioning of the classical system. Directly or indirectly, all of them had a bearing upon that feature of the territorial state which was the strongest guarantee of its independent coexistence with other states of like nature: its hard shell-that is, its defensibility in case of war. Naturally, many of these trends concerned war itself and the way in which it was conducted. But they were not related to the shift from the limited, duel-type contests of the eighteenth century to the more or less unlimited wars that developed in the nineteenth century with conscription,"nationsin arms,"and increasing destructivenessof weapons. By themselves, these developments were not inconsistent with the classical function of war. Enhancing a nation's defensive capacity,instituting universal military service, putting the economy on a war footing, and similar measures tended to bolster the territorialstate rather than to endanger it. Total war in a quite different sense is tied up with developments in
23 In League practice, therefore, membership applications of countries without this minimum were rejected (for instance, that of Liechtenstein; cf. Walther Schicking and Hans Wehberg, Die Satzung des V6lkerbundes,2nd ed., Berlin, I924, pp. 252ff.). The decline of genuine collective security in our time is apparentfrom the fact that, in contrast to this practice, the United Nations pays hardly any attention to the question of defensibility,particularlyin connection with membership applications.

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the warfarewhich enablethe belligerents overleapor by-pass tradito defenseof states.When this happens,the traditional tional hard-shell power and relationship betweenwar, on the one hand, and territorial Arrangedin order of sovereignty, the other, is altereddecisively. on increasingeffectiveness, thesenew factorsmay be listed underthe folof blockade;(b) ideologicallowingheadings:(a) possibility economic politicalpenetration; air warfare;and (d) atomicwarfare. (c) It (a) Economicwarfare. shouldbe said from the outsetthat so far economicblockadehas neverenabledone belligerent force another to alone. Although in World War I into surrender through starvation when the Western endangered Germanyand her allies were seriously a allies cut them off from overseas supplies, veryrealeffortwas still requiredto defeatthem on the militaryfronts.The same thing applies was to WorldWar II. Blockade an important contributing factor,howfor ever.Its importance the presentanalysislies in its unconventional to the nature,permittingbelligerents by-pass hard shell of the enemy. naIts effect is due to the changedeconomicstatusof industrialized tions. state was largelyself-conPrior to the industrialage, the territorial meansof conducttainedeconomically. Althoughone of the customary into fortresses surrender, appliedmerewasstarving this ing limitedwar ly to these individualportionsof the hard shell, and not to entirenanationin orderto avoid having tions. Attemptsto starvea belligerent as to breachthe shellprovedratherineffective, witnessthe Continental in Blockadeand its counterpart the Napoleonicera. The Industrial Revolution made countrieslike Britain and Germany increasingly In on dependent imports. war, this meantthat they could surviveonly In ecoby controllingareaslargerthan their own territory. peacetime. becameone of the causesof a phenomenon nomic dependency which of to itself contributed the transformation the old state system:imwith its new dangerof blockade, countries perialism. Anticipating war, of stroveto becomemoreself-sufficient throughenlargement theirareas nationslost self-suffiof control.To the extentthat the industrialized ciency,they were driveninto expansionin a (futile) effortto regain enablesmajornait. Today,if at all, only controlof entirecontinents in tionsto survive economically majorwars.This impliesthathard-shell militarydefensemustbe a matterof defendingmorethan a single nation; it must extendaroundhalf the world. the (b) Psychological warfare, attemptto underminethe moraleof an enemy population,or to subvertits loyalty,shareswith economic

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It effecton old-styleterritorial defensibility. was warfarea by-passing only under quite exceptionalcirformerlypracticed,and practicable, propaganda, cumstances. Shortperiodsof genuineworld revolutionary affecteda scarcely such as the earlystagesof the FrenchRevolution,24 underwhich dynasties, latergovernments, and fought generalpractice each other with little ideologicalinvolvementon the part of larger masses or classes.Only in rare cases-for instance,where national empirescould be apgroupsenclosedin and hostile to multinational pealed to-was therean opening wedge for "fifth column"strategies. however,nationsbeof With the emergence politicalbelief-systems, to came more susceptible underminingfrom within. Although wars of have not yet been won solely by subversion loyalties,the threatinof stateeversince the volvedhas affected innercoherence the territorial not the rise to power of a regime that claimsto represent, the cause of a particular nation,but that of mankind,or at leastof its suppressed from I9I7 on has providedthe secand exploitedportions.Bolshevism ond instancein modern historyof world revolutionary propaganda. were imitatedby the Nazi tacticssubsequently Communist penetration In and Fascistregimesand, eventually, the democracies. this way, by new lines of division,cuttinghorizontallythroughstateunits instead from each otherat theirfrontiers, vertically of leavingthem separated havenow becomepossible. (c) Air warfareand (d) nuclearwarfare.Of all the new developup ments,airwarfare, to the atomicage, has beenthe one thataffected of the territoriality nationsmost radically.With its coming, the botof tom droppedout-or, rather,the roof blew off-the relativesecurity state.True, even this new kind of warfare,up to and the territorial including the SecondWorld War, did not by itself accountfor the defeat of a belligerent,as some of the more enthusiastic prophetsof the air age had predictedit would. Undoubtedly, however,it had a effect.And this effectwas due to strategic massivecontributory action ratherthan to tacticaluse at the front.It cameat least in the hinterland interiorof closeto defeatingone side by directactionagainstthe "soft" outerdefensesand thus foreshadowing end the the country, by-passing of impermeability of the frontier-that is, the demiseof the traditional even the militarilymost powerfulstates.Warfarenow changed"from a fight to a processof devastation."25
24 See my article, "IdealistInternationalismand the Security Dilemma," World Politics, iI, No. 2 (JanuaryI950), pp. I57ff.; in particular,pp. i65ff. 25 B. H. Liddell Hart, The Revolution in Warfare,New Haven, Conn., I947, p. 36. Suspicion of what would be in the offing, once man gained the capacity to fly, was

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That air warfarewas consideredas somethingentirelyunconventransition tional is seen from the initial reactionto it. Revolutionary from an old to a new systemhas alwaysaffectedmoral standards. In the classicalage of the modern state system,the "new morality"of shootingat human beingsfrom a distancehad finally come to be acof cepted,but the standards the age clearlydistinguished "lawfulcomfrom the civilianremainder batants" the front or in fortifications at of the population. When air war came,reactions thus differedsignificantlyin the casesof air fighting at the front and of air war carried behind the front. City bombing was felt to constitute"illegitimate" warfare,and populations were inclined to treat airmenengaging in it as "warcriminals."" This feelingcontinued WorldWar II, with into area its large-scale bombing.Suchsentiments reflected generalfeelthe in of helplessness the face of a war which threatened render to ing obsoletethe conceptof territorial power,togetherwith its ancientimplicationof protection. The processhas now been completedwith the advent of nuclear of weapons.For it is more than doubtfulthat the processes scientific inventionand technologicaldiscovery,which not only have created and perfectedthe fission and fusion weapons themselvesbut have broughtin their wake guided missileswith nuclearwarheads, airjet craftwith intercontinental range and supersonic speed,and the prospect of nuclear-powered planes or rocketswith unlimitedrange and with automatic in guidanceto specifictargetsanywhere the world,can in anymeaningfulway be likenedto previous new inventions, however add up to an uncannyabsoluteness revolutionary. These processes of effectwhich previousinnovations could not achieve.The lattermight renderpower units of a certaintype (for instance,castlesor cities)
abroad as early as the eighteenth century. Thus Samuel Johnson remarked: "If men were all virtuous, I should with great alacrity teach them all to fly. But what would be the security of the good, if the bad could at pleasure invade them from the sky? Against an army sailing through the clouds, neither walls, nor mountains, nor seas, could afford security" (quoted in J. U. Nef, War and Human Progress, Cambridge, Mass., I952, p. i98). And Benjamin Franklin, witnessing the first balloon ascension at Paris in I783, foresaw invasion from the air and wrote: "Convincing Sovereigns of folly of wars may perhaps be one effect of it, since it will be impracticablefor the most potent of them to guard his dominions. . . Where is the Prince who can afford so to cover his country with troopsfor its defense, as that ten thousandmen descending from the clouds, might not in many places do an infinite deal of mischief before a force could be brought together to repel them?" (from a letter to Jan Ingelhouss, reproducedin Life Magazine, January9, I956). 26 See Julius Stone, Legal Controls of International Conflicts, New York, I954, pp.
6iiff.

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obsoleteand enlargethe realm of defensiblepower units from citystateto territorial stateor even large-area empire.They might involve in But destruction, war, of entirepopulations. there still remainedthe seemingly inexhaustible reservoir the restof mankind.Today,when of not eventwo halvesof the globeremainimpermeable, can no longer it be a questionof enlargingan area of protectionand of substituting one unit of security another.Since we are inhabitants a planet of for of limited (and, as it now seems,insufficient)size, we have reached the limit within which the effect of the meansof destruction behas come absolute.Whateverremainedof the impermeability states of seemsto havegone for good. Whathasbeenlost canbe seenfromtwo statements thinkerssepaby ratedby thousands yearsand half the world; both reflectthe condiof tion of territorial security. Mencius,in ancientChina,when askedfor guidancein mattersof defense and foreign policy by the ruler of a small state,is said to have counseled:"Dig deeperyour moats; build higheryourwalls;guardthemalongwith yourpeople." This remained the classical Rusposture to our age,when a Westernsage,Bertrand up sell,in the interwar periodcouldstill definepoweras something radiating from one centerand growing less with distancefrom that center until it finds an equilibrium with that of similargeographically anchoredunits.Now thatpowercan destroy powerfrom centerto center, is everything different.
VI. OUTLOOK AND CONCLUSION

It is beyondthe compassof this articleto ask what the changein the statehoodof nations implies for present and future world relations; whether,indeed,international relationsin the traditional sense of the term, dependentas they have been on a numberof basicdata (existenceof the nation-state, measurable power,etc.) and interpreted as they were with the aid of certainconcepts(sovereignty, independence,etc.), can survive all; and,if not, what might taketheirplace.27 at Sufficeit to remarkthat this questionis vastly complex.We cannot evenbe surethatone and only one set of conclusions derives from what has happenedor is in the processof happening. For, in J. RobertOppenheimer'swords, one of the characteristics the presentis "the of prevalence newness,the changingscale and scopeof changeitself. of
27 Some of the pertinentquestionsare discussedin a more comprehensivemanuscript, "Reflectionson InternationalPolitics in the Atomic Age," from whose initial chapters the preceding pages were adapted.

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. . In the field of militarypolicy,this meansthat sinceWorldWar II half a dozen militaryinnovations"have followed each other so rapidlythat effortsat adaptation hardlybegun before they must are

be scrapped."29 The scientific revolution has been "so fast-moving as to make almost impossible the task of military men whose responsibility it is to anticipate the future. Military planning cannot make the facts of this future stay long enough to analyze them."30 If this applies to military planning, it must apply equally to foreign policy planning, and, indeed, the newness of the new is perhaps the most significant and the most exasperating aspect of present world relations. Hardly has a bipolar world replaced the multipower world of classical territorialitythan there loom new and unpredictablemultipower constellations on the international horizon. However, the possible rise of new powers does not seem to affect bipolarity in the sense of a mere return to traditional multipower relations; since rising powers are likely to be nuclear powers, their effect must be an entirely novel one. What international relations would (or will) look like, once nuclear power is possessed by a larger number of power units, is not only extremely unpleasant to contemplate but almost impossible to anticipate, using any familiar concepts. Or, to use another example: We have hardly drawn the military and political conclusions from the new weapons developments, which at one point seemed to indicate the necessity of basing defense on the formation and maintenance of pacts like NATO and the establishment of a network of bases on allied territory from which to launch nuclear weapons "in case" (or whose existence was to deter the opponent from doing so on his part), and already further scientific and technological developments seem to render entire defense blocs, with all their new "hard shells" of bases and similar installations, obsolete. To complicate matters even more, the change-over is not even uniform and unilinear. On the contrary,in concepts as well as in policies, we witness the juxtaposition of old and new (or several new) factors, a coexistence in theory and practice of conventional and new concepts, of traditional and new policies. Part of a nation's (or a bloc's) defense policy, then, may proceed on pre-atomic assumptions, while another part is based on the assumption of a preponderantly nuclear contest.
The Open Mind, New York, I955, p. I4I. Roger Hilsman, "Strategic Doctrines for Nuclear War," in William W. Kaufmann, ed., Military Policy and National Security, Princeton, N.J., I956, p. 42. 30 Thomas K. Finletter, Power and Politics: US Foreign Policy and Military Power in the Hydrogen Age, New York, I954, p. 256.
28 29

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And a compoundingtroubleis that the future dependson what the presentanticipates, what powersnow think and how they intend on to act on the basisof theirpresentthinking;and on the fact that each the of the actorson the scenemust takeinto consideration assumptions of the others.3' Therethen evolvesthe necessity multilevelconceptsand of multiof the level policiesin the new era. In this we have,perhaps, chief cause of of the confusionand bewilderment countriesand publics.A good deal in recentforeignpolicies,with their violent swings from one exand or tremeto another, from appeasement apathyto truculence threats and of war,andalsomuchin internal policies, with theirsuspicions hysuncertainties. Confusion, of terias,may be reflections world-political despair,or easy optimismhave been rampant;desireto give in, keep neutralism, advocacy appeasement, of out, or get it overwith underlies or preventivewar; mutuallyexclusiveattitudesfollow each other in
rapid succession.

One radical conclusionto be drawn from the new condition of permeability would seem to be that nothing short of global rule can ultimatelysatisfythe securityinterestof any one power, and particuof For larly any superpower. only throughelimination the singlecompetitorwho reallycountscan one feel safefrom the threatof annihiladestruction. And sinceelimination withoutwar is hardlyimaginable, seemto be of the otherpowerby preventive tion war would therefore the logical objectiveof each superpower. But-and here the security
31The expectationsconnected with the situation of nuclear deterrencemay serve as an illustration.Each side, so we may assume, wants to act "rationally"-that is, avoid resort to a war which it knows would be suicidal; in this, in fact, is grounded the widespread present belief in the obsoleteness of major-i.e., nuclear-war. However, not knowing for sure that the other side can be trusted to behave rationally,each feels that the possibilityof irrationalbehavior by the opponent must be included in its own calculations.For instance, assuming that rationally the United States would not permit itself to be provoked into nuclear action, can it rely on Soviet abstentionfrom nuclear attack for similarly rational reasons?Or can the Soviets, who may actually believe that the "imperialist"powers are ready to inflict the worst on them, rely on Western rationality? And if, knowing that the other side may be swayed by considerationslike these, one side takes these amended calculations as yardsticks for its own, what rational considerationsremain? Policies then become so dependent on considerationsof what you believe the other side believes, etc., ad infinitum, that no sane calculations are any longer feasible. One is caught here in the vicious circle inherent in the problem of the effects of assumptions (in behaviorist parlance, the problem of "anticipatedreactions"), of what David Easton has called the possibility of an "infinite regress of effects" (The Political System, New York, I953, p. 27). It may be doubted that even the theory of games as applied to internationalrelations can cope with this one. And suppose that, sometime in the future, more than two major units "play"?In the face of this prospect, as Herbert Butterfield says, "The mind winces and turns to look elsewhere" (History and Human Relations, New York, I952, p. 23).

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dilemmaencounters othergreatdilemmaof our time-such an aim the is no longerpractical. Sincethermonuclear would in all likelihood war involveone'sown destruction the togetherwith the opponent's, means defeatsthe end itself. throughwhichthe end wouldhaveto be attained would resultin mutualanPursuance the "logical" of security objective nihilationratherthan in one unit'sglobal controlof a pacifiedworld. If this is so, the short-term objectivemust surelybe mutualaccoma and modation, drawingof demarcation lines,geographical otherwise, betweenEastand West which would at leastserveas a stopgappolicy, a holding operation in pendingthe creationof an atmosphere which, perhaps consequence a prolonged in of periodof "coldpeace," tensions mayabateandthe impactof the ideologies presently dividingthe world diminish.May we then expect,or hope, that radicallynew attitudes, in accordance structure nationhood of and with a radically transformed international relations,may ultimatelygain the upper hand over the inherited ones basedon familiarconcepts old-stylenationalsecurity, of power, and power competition?Until recently,advocacyof policies basedon internationalism insteadof powerpolitics,on substituting the of interests the prevalence nationalinterests, of observance universal for was considered utopian,and correctlyso. Nationalinterestswere still tied up with nation-states units of power and with their securityas as impermeable units;internationalist ideals,while possiblyrecognizedas ran counterto what nationswere able to affordif they ethicallyvalid, wantedto surviveand prosper.But the dichotomybetween"national self-interest" and "internationalist ideals" no longer fits a situation in which sovereignty and ever so absolutepower cannot protect nationsfrom annihilation. of What used to be a dichotomy interests idealsnow emergesas and a dichotomybetween two sets of interests.For the former ideal has becomea compellinginterest itself.In formertimes,the livesof people, theirgoods and possessions, theirhopesand their happiness, were tied up with the affairsof the countryin which they lived, and interests thus centeredaroundnationand nationalissues.Now that destruction in threatenseverybody, every one of his most intimate,personalinterests,nationalinterestsare boundto recedebehind-or at least compete with-the commoninterestof all mankindin sheersurvival. And in if we add to this the universal interest the commonsolutionof other such as thoseposedby the population-resources greatworld problems, dilemma (exhaustionof vital resources coupledwith the "population explosion"throughoutthe world), or, indeed, that of "peacetime"

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fallout, it is perhapsnot enpollutionthroughradio-active planetary of tirelyutopianto expectthe ultimatespread an attitudeof "universalto ism"throughwhich a rationalapproach world problemswould at last becomepossible. It may be fitting to concludethis articleby quotingtwo men, one a scientistwhose words on nuclear problemsmay well contemporary apply to otherproblemsof world relations,the seconda philosopher impactof attitudechangesseems on whosestatement the revolutionary thing to recas validtodayas when it was firstmade:"It is a practical of soluwholly incapable unilateral ognize as a commonresponsibility, for commonperilthatatomicweaponsconstitute the tion,the complete of is world,to recognizethat only by a community responsibility there any hope of meeting the peril. It would seem to me visionaryin the to and not practical, hope that methodswhich have so sadly extreme, in failedin the pastto avertwar will succeed the face of this far greater peril. It would in my opinionbe most dangerousto regard,in these shattering times, a radicalsolutionless practicalthan a conventional morein the one"(J. RobertOppenheimer).32And: "Thoughtachieves has world than practice; once the realmof imagination been revofor, lutionized,realitycannotresist"(Hegel).
32

ary

29,

"Atomic Weapons," Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, xc (JanuI946), pp. 9f.