The Shield of Achilles by Philip Bobbitt
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Bobbitt the historian tells us the story of the modern state, while Bobbitt the expert in strategic planning links this story to changes in military technology which in turn were bound to change military strategy. So we learn how military requirements produced new kinds of state: the “princely state” (1494 – 1648), the “kingly state” that merged into the “territorial state” (1648 – 1776), the “state-nation” (1776 – 1914), and the “nation-state” in what Bobbitt calls the “Long War” (1914 – 1990). How far this analysis is valid and persuasive is a matter for historians to debate. What is interesting in the present context is Bobbitt’s conclusion: just as the state-nation had to be replaced by the nation-state, so the nation-state, in the 21st century, will be superseded by what Bobbitt calls the “market-state”. It does not matter whether Bobbitt likes or recommends this market-state (he does). Whether we like it or not, this new type of state is what history will bring about.
If you want a really fast introduction to the book’s entire argument, ponder those plates for five minutes, then leap to Bobbitt’s summary of three scenarios on pp. 721-2, and then vault to the climax of the argument on pp. 773-5.
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xxi Opening lines: “We are at a moment in world affairs when the essential ideas that govern statecraft must change . . . owing to advances in international telecommunications, rapid computation, and weapons of mass destruction.”
This book “is principally concerned with the relationship between strategy and legal order.”
xxvi “A great epochal war has just ended. The various competing systems of the contemporary nation-state (fascism, communism, parliamentarianism) that fought that war all took their legitimacy from the promise to better the material welfare of their citizens. The market-state offers a different covenant: It will maximize the opportunity of its people.”
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