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Warfare and the State
This paper will discuss Bruce Porter's bo |
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This paper will discuss Bruce Porter's book, War and the Rise of the State. The body of the paper will outline Porter's thesis, presenting examples to illustrate his arguments. The remaining portion of the paper will discuss Porter's conclusions concerning the future of the relationship between warfare and the state as compared to the conclusions of Jessica Mathews and Martin van Creveld. At the outset of his book, Porter asserts that war has been one of the essential elements in Western history, transforming societies and contributing to the rise of the modern nation-state. The transforming effects of war have much to do with its nature of organized destruction. Organized destruction, according to Porter, can weaken or destroy traditional structures or compel internal reforms. Over the course of Western history, such organized destruction has caused western societies to move from medieval, traditional, decentralized, and personal forms of government to bureaucratic, rationalized, centralized, and impersonal forms (Porter, 1994, p. xiv). Porter states that, contrary to the notions of many historians, war has played a central role in history. They are not tragic intermissions or transient phenomena; rather, warfare is a powerful catalyst for change, be it good or bad. In Western history, warfare has led to the increase in the size and power of central governments. Strong states violently imposed peace on divided societies, eliminating the possibility of civil war a
er military expansion (Porter, 1994, pp. 27-39).
Once the European states began taking shape, Porter asserts that the kind of state each one became was largely influenced by warfare. Porter notes that other historians have commented upon the correlation between certain types of states and certain types of armies. Porter states that there have been three forms of states in Western history which roughly correspond to three distinct periods of warfare in European history. First was the Era of Religious Wars, which was connected to the Protestant Reformation and which ended with the Peace of Westphalia in 1648. The states which arose after this period were the first secular sovereign states in European history and took the forms of either constitutional (England) or absolutist (France) dynasties. Second was the period of nationalistic wars which corresponded to the French revolution and the Napoleonic period. This period marked the rise of the nation-states, in which there was a close identification between the cultural nation and the political state. Finally came the period of industrialized warfare which started roughly in 1914 and ended with the Cold War. The states which emerged from this period were collectivist in natur
Category: Government - W
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World War, Mathews Martin, Cold War, Sixteenth Century, Century Warfare, Century Porter, Reformation Recent, Peace Westphalia, Eighteenth Century, Thirty War, porter 1994, porter 1994 pp, 1994 pp, world war, western history, van creveld, larger armies, role war, war rise, porter asserts, organized destruction, system role war, modern system role, warfare eighteenth century, evolution modern system,
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