* * *
[T]he modern Western world has inherited one legacy of
extraordinary importance from the Christian and Germanic Middle Ages. It has
inherited a sharper and more painful sense of the conflict between raison d'etat on the one hand, and
ethics and law on the other; and also the feeling which is constantly being
aroused, that ruthless raison d'etat
is really sinful, a sin against God and divine standards, a sin against the
sanctity and inviolability of the law of the good old times. The ancient world
was already familiar with these sins of raison
d'etat, and did not omit to criticize them, but without taking them very
much to heart. The very secularity of human values in the ancient world made it
possible to view raison d'etat with a
certain calmness and to consider it the outcome of natural forces which were
not to be subdued. Sinfulness in antiquity was still a perfectly naive
sinfulness, not yet disquieted and frightened by the gulf between heaven and
hell which was to be opened up by Christianity. This dualistic picture of the
world, which was held by dogmatic Christianity, has had a deep influence even
on the period of a Christianity that is growing undogmatic; and it has given
the problem of raison d'etat this
deeply felt overtone of tragedy, which it never carried in antiquity.
It was therefore a historical necessity that the man, with
whom the history of the idea of raison
d'etat in the modern Western world begins and from whom Machiavellism takes
its name, had to be a heathen; he had to be a man to whom the fear of hell was
unknown, and who on the contrary could set about his life-work of analysing the
essence of raison d'etat with all the
naivety of the ancient world.
Niccolo Machiavelli was the first to do this. We are
concerned here with the thing itself, not with the name for it, which he still
did not possess. Machiavelli had not yet compressed his thoughts on raison d'etat into a single slogan. Fond
as he was of forceful and meaningful catch-words (coining many himself), he did
not always feel the need to express in words the supreme ideas which filled
him; if, that is, the thing itself seemed to him self-evident, if it filled him
completely. For example, critics have noticed that he fails to express any
opinion about the real final purpose of the State, and they have mistakenly
deduced from this that he did not reflect on the subject. But, as we shall soon
see, his whole life was bound up with a definite supreme purpose of the State.
And in the same way his whole political way of thought is nothing else but a
continual process of thinking about raison
d'etat.
* * *
The most serious discrepancy in his system of thought—a
discrepancy which he never succeeded in eliminating and which he never even
tried to eliminate—lay between the newly discovered ethical sphere of virtú, and of the State animated by virtú, on the one hand, and the old
sphere of religion and morality on the other. This virtú of Machiavelli was originally a natural and dynamic idea,
which (not altogether unhappily) contained a certain quality of barbarity (ferocia); he now considered that it
ought not to remain a mere unregulated natural force (which would have been in
accordance with the spirit of the Renaissance) but that it ought to be raised
into a virtú ordinata, into a rationally and purposively directed code of values
for rulers and citizens. The virtú ordinata naturally set a high value on
religion and morality, on account of the influence they exerted towards maintaining
the State. In particular, Machiavelli spoke out very forcibly on the subject of
the indispensability of religion (Disc., I, 11 and 12); at any rate, he was
strongly in favour of a religion which would make men courageous and proud. He
once named “religion, laws, military affairs” together in one breath, as the
three fundamental pillars of the State. But, in the process, religion and
morality fell from the status of intrinsic values, and became nothing more than
means towards the goal of a State animated by virtú. It was this that led him on to make the double-edged recommendation,
which resounded so fearsomely down the centuries to come, inciting statesmen to
an irreligious and at the same time dishonest scepticism: the advice that even
a religion tinged with error and deception ought to be supported, and the wiser
one was, the more one would do it (Disc., I, 12). Whoever thought like this
was, from a religious point of view, completely adrift. What final certainty
and sure foundation was there left in life, if even an unbelieved and false
religion could count as valuable, and when moral goodness was seen as being a
product of fear and custom? In this godless world of Nature man was left alone
with only himself and the powers Nature had given him, to carry on the fight
against all the fateful forces wielded by this same Nature. And this was
exactly what Machiavelli conceived his own situation to be.
It is striking and forceful to observe how he strove to rise
superior to it. On the one side fortuna,
on the other virtú—this was how he
interpreted it. Many people today (he says in ch. 25 of the Principe), in the face of the various
blows of Fate and unsuspected revolutions we have experienced, are now of the
opinion that all wisdom is entirely unavailing against the action of Fate, and
that we must just let it do what it likes with us. He admits that even he
himself has occasionally felt like this, when in a gloomy mood. But he
considered it would be lacking in virtu to surrender to the feeling. One must
rouse oneself and build canals and dams against the torrent of Fate, and then
one will be able to keep it within bounds. . . .
Enemies learn to use each other's weapons. Virtú has the task of forcing back fortuna. Fortuna is malicious, so virtú
must also be malicious, when there is no other way open. This expresses quite
plainly the real spiritual origin of Machiavellism: the infamous doctrine that,
in national behaviour, even unclean methods are justified, when it is a
question of winning or of keeping the power which is necessary for the State.
It is the picture of Man, stripped of all transcendent good qualities, left
alone on the battlefield to face the daemonic forces of Nature, who now feels himself
possessed too of a daemonic natural strength and returns blow for blow.
* * *
The one who
remained furthest from these problems was Hugo Grotius,
the principal founder of modern international law. This was due to the nature of his task. International
law and raison d'etat stand in natural
opposition to one another. International law wishes to restrict the sway of raison d'etat, and give
it as much of a legal character as possible. Raison
d'etat, however, chafes under this restriction, and makes use of law, in fact very frequently
misuses it, as a means towards its own egotistical ends. By
doing so, raison d'etat is continually shattering the foundations which international law has just painfully attempted to lay. In many ways, international law is
performing a labour of Sisyphus by struggling with raison d'etat; and
this tends to become more so, the less
international law troubles itself about the essential nature and requirements
of raison d'etat. For then it is in danger, from the outset, of becoming unreal, unpractical and
doctrinaire. And however great were the intellectual accomplishments and
scientific credit due to Grotius, yet he
himself succumbed to this danger on a number of essential points. It was not as if this arose from any lack of knowledge about
political reality. When, in Paris in 1625, he finished his great work De
jure belli ac pacis, he already possessed a wealth of political experience, and had tasted the sorrows of the political
refugee. He knew the world, and knew
what statecraft was; but he deliberately kept this knowledge quite apart from his work. 'I have
abstained from everything', he says
in the Introduction, 'that belongs to other provinces, such as the doctrine of what is profitable, since
this belongs to the special art of
politics. I have only mentioned these other questions quite perfunctorily in different places, in order
to distinguish them more clearly from the question of law'. Scientific
thought, having not yet become properly adjusted to the organic reciprocal
effects of the various provinces of life, could find no other way of keeping
them all logically separate from one another, except the superficial method of
treating each one in complete isolation. And so Grotius constructed his system
of international law, just as if there did not exist any such thing as raison d'etat, or any constraining force
tending to push States over the frontiers of morality and law; just as if it
were possible altogether to confine the behaviour of States to one another
within legal and moral bounds. In the process, he mingled law and morality together
promiscuously at every step. But standing behind all this were his own view of
life and his own personality, which was altogether noble, gentle and full of
human feeling. He built up his ideas about law and the State on the foundation
of a belief in humanity, a belief in the sociable and altruistic impulses of men,
and a belief especially in the solidarity of the Christian peoples. In him, the
old traditions of the Corpus Christianum
were already passing over into the modern civil and liberal ideals of life,
infused with feeling, such as were now capable of developing amongst the Dutch
commercial aristocracy. He, the advocate of arbitration in conflict between
nations, is entitled to a much larger place in the history of the pacifist idea
than in the history of the idea of raison
d'etat. His feeling was decidedly unheroic when he advised conquered
nations that it was better for them to accept their fate, than to continue a
hopeless struggle for their freedom—since reason valued life more highly than
it did freedom! This was also a utilitarian way of thinking; but he looked upon
raison d'etat and the policy of
interest as a lower form of usefulness, compared with the higher and more
permanent advantage afforded by the maintenance of natural law and the
international law of nations. And even if (he added) one might not be able to
see any profit in acting in accordance with justice, it would still be a matter
of wisdom and not stupidity to act in that manner to which we feel drawn by our nature.
Certainly the struggle, waged by his international law and usage of war against barbarism and crude force, was productive of many blessings; and, in spite of the fact that more than one of its requirements has proved excessive, it has also exerted a beneficial influence on the practice of nations. Indeed it is seldom that great ethical ideals arise in life which do not carry with them some admixture of illusion. But he firmly believed in the old illusion, that it would always be possible to distinguish the 'just war' from the wars that were unjust and impermissible; and this illusion was capable of actually increasing the difficulty of the situations, and of increasing rather than lessening the sources of conflict and occasions of war. He declared that it was the duty of neutrals to do nothing which was capable of strengthening the defender of the bad cause, or of hindering the enterprise of the just cause. But what could this mean, except that the neutral should take sides, on the basis of a judgment of moral value, which would always tend to be influenced by his personal interest, by his raison d'etat? Indeed even wars of intervention, undertaken for motives of pure morality and justice, in order to punish a glaring injustice by a ruler against his subjects, or crude infringements of international law and the law of nature, were held by him to be unjustified. That cases could arise, in which the conscience of the whole civilized world might cry out against one who scorned justice and humanity, and interfere with full authority to stop it, is a fact which has to be recognized even today, and indeed particularly today. But every influx of unpolitical motives into the province of pure conflicts of power and interest brings with it the danger that these motives will be misused and debased by the naturally stronger motives of mere profit, of raison d'etat. The latter resembles some mud-coloured stream that swiftly changes all the purer waters flowing into it into its own murky colour. The wars of intervention during the period of the Holy Alliance, and the misuse of moral and legal motives by Germany's opponents during the World War, offer proof of this.
Certainly the struggle, waged by his international law and usage of war against barbarism and crude force, was productive of many blessings; and, in spite of the fact that more than one of its requirements has proved excessive, it has also exerted a beneficial influence on the practice of nations. Indeed it is seldom that great ethical ideals arise in life which do not carry with them some admixture of illusion. But he firmly believed in the old illusion, that it would always be possible to distinguish the 'just war' from the wars that were unjust and impermissible; and this illusion was capable of actually increasing the difficulty of the situations, and of increasing rather than lessening the sources of conflict and occasions of war. He declared that it was the duty of neutrals to do nothing which was capable of strengthening the defender of the bad cause, or of hindering the enterprise of the just cause. But what could this mean, except that the neutral should take sides, on the basis of a judgment of moral value, which would always tend to be influenced by his personal interest, by his raison d'etat? Indeed even wars of intervention, undertaken for motives of pure morality and justice, in order to punish a glaring injustice by a ruler against his subjects, or crude infringements of international law and the law of nature, were held by him to be unjustified. That cases could arise, in which the conscience of the whole civilized world might cry out against one who scorned justice and humanity, and interfere with full authority to stop it, is a fact which has to be recognized even today, and indeed particularly today. But every influx of unpolitical motives into the province of pure conflicts of power and interest brings with it the danger that these motives will be misused and debased by the naturally stronger motives of mere profit, of raison d'etat. The latter resembles some mud-coloured stream that swiftly changes all the purer waters flowing into it into its own murky colour. The wars of intervention during the period of the Holy Alliance, and the misuse of moral and legal motives by Germany's opponents during the World War, offer proof of this.
* * *
Friedrich Meinecke, Machiavellism:
The Doctrine of Raison D’Etat And Its Place in Modern History. Translated
from the German by Douglas Scott (New York, Praeger, 1965 [1924, 1957] 28-29, 35-36, 208-210. Meinecke's reflections were published in 1924 and still reflected, despite the disaster of the First World War, basic themes of German nationialism and Machtpolitik. Daniel Deudney, in Bounding Power, p. 72, has a a poignant summary of Meinecke's position after the "much more complete disaster of the Third Reich and World War II." In The German Catastrophe, published in the 1950s, Meinecke
becomes completely disillusioned
with the political nation and nationalism and offers something of an autopsy of
the radicalized national statist line of argument. He acknowledges that the
"German power-state idea" finds "in Hitler its worst and most
fatal application and extension" and says that "our conception of
power must be purified from the filth which came into it during the Third
Reich" and that "the purpose of power must be reflected upon and
wisely limited.'' Rejecting the "fighting folk character" culminating
in Hitlerism, he urges a return to the cultural nationalism of "the
peaceful volk character" with its "genuine Romanticism."
He looks to its protection not from an autonomous power state but rather as a
"member of a future federation, voluntarily concluded, of the central and
west European states," which would be a "United Nations of
Europe."
