Transformations of war and violence in Europe

De Baripedia

In The State, War and the State of War published in 2001, Holsti explains the successive transformations of war in Europe, starting with the wars of the Middle Ages from 1650 to 1789, he discusses the limited wars known as institutionalized wars, which he describes as first type wars. The wars of the second type are the total wars that emerged after the French Revolution with the Napoleonic wars until the Second World War. Wars of the third type emerged after 1945, mainly concerning Third World states. War has changed and transformed throughout European history.

Allegory of Catherine's Victory over the Turks (1772), by Stefano Torelli.

For war to occur, there must be a complex and hierarchical social organization capable of forcing men to fight. Depending on the ways in which political societies are organized, wars will change. We will see how war is transformed in European history as the forms of political organisations change and modern states become increasingly powerful and effective in their war activities.

We have seen how war makes the state at the same time as the state makes war. This works as well as because there is a plurality of political units and a relatively balanced balance of power between states in Europe. War and armed conflict and its evolutions-transformations must therefore first and foremost be analysed as a relationship. Speaking of war as an abstract object, it gives the impression that the kings and fledgling states in Europe were waging war, but without analysing the relationship of reciprocity without which there could be no war. Wartime activity is defined not only by the fact that a political centre has armed forces specialized in wartime activity, but also by the fact that there are several political centres in contact with each other. These relationships must be understood in order to understand how war is transformed.

War as an institution of the "interstate system"

Violence is often perceived, especially in its organized form and in the form of war, as chaotic elements whose passion for violence prevails over any political or legal considerations. War can also be seen as a specific institution, i. e. an inter-state practice governed by a number of norms and rules that must be followed in order to conduct war in a legitimate manner.

Fishing for Souls (Zielenvisserij), 1614, a satirical allegory of Protestant-Catholic struggles for souls during the Dutch Revolt (Rijksmuseum)

Modern territoriality in Europe is the result of multiple imperial pretensions competing in a relatively small and balanced territory: the European states have generally started by thinking of themselves as empires. This shows that, on the one hand, the modern State is inseparable from the principle of sovereignty, which states that the only authority of last resort and last instance on the national territory is the State which is sovereign or otherwise called sovereign on that territory to the exclusion of any other State. The principle of sovereignty in principle, which explicitly defines the State, exists only because it is recognized by other States. Each government and each State claims absolute primacy over its territory, but at the same time this primacy is not absolute because it exists only because it is recognized by other States. The State is governed by a legal principle which is the principle of mutual recognition. In order to understand what a State is, we must not only look at international relations, but also at the relations between nascent States which will recognize themselves as reciprocally sovereign in a territory having ownership of a given space mutually recognized.

There is a universalism of the national state that must be distinguished from that of the empire. The State as a sovereign entity exists only because there is an inter-State system that builds it as a sovereign State. There is a universalism of the national state in the sense that the modern state thinks of itself and can only be understood within the framework of a state system where there are several states that are equal in rights, sovereignty and principle. There is a universality of the form of the State in the sense that there are several States that make up the inter-State system, where what prevails is the universality of the form of the State that is expressed in each of the States.

The inter-state system that emerged in the 17th century with the treaties of Westphalia is based on a logic of internal equilibrium, but is also based on an external balance of governments between different states. If there is to be an inter-state system, none of the States that constitute it must be strong enough to be stronger than the other States. In the inter-state system, there is a principle of external equilibrium between States that should in principle prevent an empire from emerging. In other words, the "inter-state system" is based on a logic of internal equilibrium between the administration and the citizens and a logic of external equilibrium between state governments.

The colonial period is a time when there is an inter-state system on the European continent, but they are also empires outside the European continent. This contradiction will disappear with the end of colonization, which will universalize the state principle.

Carte du Monde présentant les possessions coloniales en 1945.

The state as we know it is inseparable from the existence of an inter-state system. To understand what a modern state is, it must be placed in a broader system that is an inter-state system based on the universalism of the state form, as well as on the specificity of each state. There are specificities and peculiarities to each State, but a universalism of the form of the State. There are a number of principles that govern the inter-state system, namely the mutual recognition of sovereignty between States, but war itself is also the result of certain conventions recognized by States among themselves. Historically, sovereignty was also the sovereign right of the State to wage war, provided that war is conducted according to the standards and principles that go with the mutual recognition of sovereignty. Historically, war can be seen as an institution of the inter-state system.

This raises the question of what an institution is. In International Institutions and State Power: Essays in International Relations Theory (1989), Keohane defined an institution as "persistent and connected sets of rules (formal and informal) that prescribe behavioral roles, constrain activity, and shape expectations". They are sets of formal and informal rules that persist over time and are interconnected, prescribing certain standards of behaviour, binding practices and activities that determine the expectations of the future of the institution by actors who submit to it. An institution is a set of norms that compel actors to act in a certain way in a certain situation. Nevertheless, this definition is very much imbued with an anthropological tradition in which everyday life is analysed, as is for example the institution of marriage. This forces activities that generate costs. Institutions are not absolutely decisive, but they play a role in creating symbolic and material costs for actors who do not respect them.

How has war come to be analyzed as an institution by both internationalists and practitioners? Between the time of the Westphalian treaties of 1648 and the French Revolution of 1789, this did not mean engaging in violent activities on the battlefield, but referred to a legal system that required compliance with formal and informal rules prescribing behaviour and roles. Being in a "state of war" between the wars in Westphalia and the total wars was above all a legal state. It was possible to use armed force, but also with the obligation to respect a certain number of principles, rules and standards, including discrimination between civilians and military personnel, the obligation to carry arms and uniform from the Thirty Years' War under the reign of Gustav Adolphe II, respect for the principle of proportionality, involve a ceasefire with negotiations leading to a peace treaty. War involves respecting certain forms of form in order to make war in a legitimate way.

According to John Vasquez in The War Puzzle published in 1993, war is a learned mode of political decision-making through which two or more political units allocate material or symbolic goods on the basis of violent competition. Conceiving war as an institution of inter-state relations means that, as in any political system with a plurality of actors, there will be a problem of resource allocation. There may be several mechanisms for allocating resources within a system to multiple actors. The state through government is a mechanism for redistributing wealth, legislation and law enforcement. In international relations, this is more complex. The problem is that in international relations, there is no executive mechanism that would require that once the winner and loser of a resource allocation system are identified to meet the commitments. The advantage of war over any other resource allocation mechanism does not necessarily require the cooperation of the parties. For Vasquez, the war has made it possible to determine to which sovereign this or that benefit linked to international life belongs. It had to comply with certain standards of warfare.

Allegory of the turkish wars: the declaration of war at constantinople, 1603-4 - Johann or Hans Von Aachen.

Holsti shows that war can be a mechanism for conflict resolution. After the war, once the winner and the vanquished had been identified, a ceasefire put an end to the fighting, but not to the war, a peace treaty would endorse the resolution of the conflict and put an end to it. The war was a short period of time in a much longer process of conflict that was going to be a mechanism for resolving the conflict. War is not something natural linked to the fact that the balance of power would be constitutive of international relations, it is an institution learned by the rulers inseparable from a certain number of rules. Each of the parties to this resource allocation mechanism works together to end the conflict even if it goes through a phase of war. The idea of war as a resolution mechanism is also found in Aron's "Thinking War, Clausewitz" published in 1971:"If the strategy has an end, it could be summed up in one word: peace. The end of the strategy or conduct of war is peace, not military victory, even if each of the warring parties wants a different peace. During the period of limited wars, war was also perceived as such.

The ruler who loses the fight or emerges on the battlefield as the defeated can always defecate the institution of war. Quite often, it can be the people who will rise up against the occupier, which in the traditional law of the people was considered unacceptable. The right of resistance in jus cogens was not recognized. A population that rose up against the foreign occupier who decided to wage war on its own account was considered an illegitimate war. During Napoleon's occupation of Spain, the Spanish guerrillas were considered to be fighting under a usurped right and had to be exterminated because they had to accept defeat.

Real wars always tend to redefine or transgress the institutionalized forms of warfare that have made them possible for the simple reason that the loser does not always accept to be a loser, may launch an insurgent war after having lost the conventional war considered to be an illegitimate war. War as an institution has worked for some time, but there have always been attempts to circumvent or transform it.

Carte paix de westphalie 1.png

The Westphalian system was established in 1648 with the Westphalian treaties, namely the Treaty of Osnabrück and the Treaty of Münster ending the Thirty Years' War. This war was excessively lethal, some historians consider that a third of the population of the Holy Roman Empire died as a result of the consequences of this war. The borders of Europe were redrawn with the "princis cuius refio, euis religi" according to which every prince, sovereign, king is master on his territory for religious matters in order to prevent conflicts of religions within the state. This principle is the historical principle of sovereignty. The political sphere was at that time consubstantial to the religious sphere.

Sovereignty is an institution of the inter-state system based on mutual recognition which determines reciprocal behaviour, rules, constrains activities and limits the right to conduct annexation wars in any case on a massive scale. In the same way that sovereignty was established as a principle with the Westphalian treaties, war became an institution of conflict resolution until the French Revolution. In order to understand the characteristics of war and war at some point in time, it is necessary to understand not only how states are structured internally, but also the norms, institutions and treaties that govern international life and the way in which war is conducted. In order to understand how war is transformed in Europe, it is not enough to look at the formal or informal rules that governments respect or not, but we must also take into account the institutional factors, but also the technological factors that explain the evolution of the war from 1648 to today.

Organizational and technological determinants

Illustrations of military uniforms from 1690 to 1865 by René L'Hôpital.

Between 1450 and 1700, Michael Robert described this period as that of a "Military Revolution" based on conscripted armies, generally peasants who would be forced to participate in the war by virtue of their duty of allegiance. This entails imposing a hierarchy and chain of command to coordinate massive armies. The military revolution of that era was based on a reorganization of the army, a redefinition of the recruitment of combatants, which involved rationalizing logistics, tactics and military administration. The period between 1450 and 1700 corresponds to various developments that were decisive for the evolution of the art of warfare. On the one hand, the generalization of uniform wearing by combatants, the introduction of strict discipline or the supervision of supply. This military revolution is also linked to the construction of the State with its rationalization and bureaucratization. The invention of the printing press made it possible to print tactical manuals, military doctrine and disciplinary regulations to disseminate rules and principles to combatant forces participating in their discipline, and to subject them to behaviour and conduct in wartime that would make them more effective. It is a time when we rediscover the ancient rules, such as, for example, with the organizational refinement of the phalanx.

War is becoming more and more lethal as a result of the reorganization of the armed forces, but at the same time the organisation of war in international relations presupposes respect for principles such as the principle of proportionality, the principle of distinction between civil and military or the declaration of war and the conclusion of a treaty.

From Religious Wars to Modern Wars

Cromwell, Gustave Adolphe II and Maurice de Nassau were warring parties in the Thirty Years' War. These three protagonists have one thing in common: they are Protestant. Among Calvinists of the sixteenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, there is the idea of predestination which is the idea that everything that happens to an individual was decided by God, corresponds to the will of God, enrichment in earthly life is willed by God. The idea of predestination in Calvinism implies that earthly success has a religious value leading to a very strong valorization in Calvinist communities with economic success. The combination of a radical foundation, the ideology of predestination that a military victory is not only a military victory, but also to be on the right side from a theological point of view, implies that there is an emphasis by the Protestants of the time, a valorization of military reform and the military organizational system to make it more effective.

Gunpowder was introduced in Europe as early as the 13th century, giving rise to individual firearms, but also to the guns and mortars that would shape the way of warfare in the period from the Military Revolution to the present day. The industrial revolution is also a determining factor in the advent of the so-called "industrial warfare", which is the application of the industrial method to warfare with a chain production, a standardization that allows an increase in efficiency.

The forced march to total war?

Sticking to technological and organizational criteria is counterproductive because there are limited and institutionalized periods of warfare, which can be explained by the interaction of the role of war as an institution of inter-state warfare, which sometimes rather acts as an institution of violent practices in times of war, while technological and organizational factors push towards more lethal wars. From exogenous, technology is rapidly becoming an endogenous factor in organizational development. It is the same competitive structure of the European inter-state system that explains the "competitive centralisation" of states and the development and diffusion of military technologies.

Des guerres du Moyen-Âge à la guerre totale

Selon Holsti, dans The State, War and the State of War publié en 2001, il est possible de distinguer trois formes de guerre :

  • les guerres du Moyen-Âge ;
  • les guerres totales ;
  • les guerres dit du tiers-monde.

Des guerres du moyen-âge à la guerre totale

Dans les guerres du Moyen-Âge, différents types d’unités politiques se trouvent impliquées. On trouve différents types de forces combattantes, dont des mercenaires, des pirates, des chevaliers et des soldats. Du point de vue de la composition sociologique en temps de guerre, il y une forte hétérogénéité. Le caractère fluide des allégeances est accentué par l’extrêmement hétérogénéité des unités impliquées dans les guerres. Il y a une absence de discrimination civil-combattants qui a pour cause des pillages notamment pour le ravitaillement qui engendre des massacres.

Concernent les guerres du Moyen-Âge, il y a des questions idéologiques, mais également des luttes de pouvoir jouant un rôle important dans ces guerres qui met en évidence une imbrication d’objectifs économiques, politiques, religieux. Il faut parler d’« états de violence » autant que de batailles rangées.

Les guerres limitées/ institutionalisées/ trinitaires (du « 1er type » selon Holsti) : 1648 – 1789

Les guerres du premier type qui font suivre au Moyen-Âge sont dites guerres limitées et guerres institutionnalisées. Dans ces guerres, « faire la guerre » suppose de respecter un certain nombre de normes strictes qui permet à la guerre d’être un mécanisme strict de résolution des conflits, d’allouer des ressources au sein du système interétatique européen.

Guerre turco-autrichienne de 1716-1718. Huile sur toile exposée au Musée national hongrois.

Ce sont des guerres relativement courtes durant de 1 à 2 ans. Les guerres sont aussi fréquentes. Les guerres limitées suivent un séquençage clair débutant par une déclaration de guerre, puis un cessez-le-feu et se terminent avec un traité de paix. Le fait que les guerres d’aujourd’hui ne se sont pas conformes à cette vision est dû au fait que les États ne font plus de déclaration de guerre. Depuis la Première guerre mondiale et plus encore depuis la Deuxième guerre mondiale, l’institution de la guerre est tombée en déshérence et ne se pratique plus.

Les guerres institutionnalisées ont des objectifs limités pour des politiques limités et intérêts limités. Ce sont des guerres caractérisées par une très forte codification avec uniformes, une pratique de la discrimination entre civils et combattants et des codes de conduite. Pendant cette période, la Noblesse d’épée applique son code de tradition militaire fondé sur le principe de chevalerie supposant de respecter l’ennemie en tant que telle du moins son statut hiérarchique. Ces guerres limitées sont aussi limitées par l’origine sociologique commune des combattants qui s’engagent dans la guerre des deux côtés et mus par leur identité de classe plutôt que par leur idéologie nationaliste. Ces guerres sont limitées dans le temps et l’espace, mais aussi caractérisées par des tactiques de manœuvre plutôt que d’adopter une approche qui vise à l’annihilation. Certains auteurs appellent les guerres institutionnalisées des « guerres en dentelle ».

La guerre du deuxième type ou guerre totale : 1789 – 1815, 1914 – 1945

La bataille de Marengo. Tableau de Louis-François Lejeune.

Il y a à la fois des déterminants technologiques et organisationnels avec la levée en masse notamment qui ont lieu lors des guerres révolutionnaires qui débutent en 1792. Les forces armées d’un pays vont être conçues comme la « nation en armes » dans le cadre d’armées de conscription qui vontradicaliser les luttes en termes de violence. Le caractère destructif de ces guerres va prendre fin avec la chute de Napoléon qui va s’ouvrir sur la période de la « paix de cent ans » qui se caractérise par un retour des guerres limitées.

Les facteurs qui jouent un rôle important dans ce type de conflit sont le nationalisme et le zèle révolutionnaire, l’annihilation de l’ennemi avec le principe de capitulation sans condition. Les objectifs sont illimités avec des luttes de libération, pour la démocratie ou encore des luttes de race. Leprincipe de non-discrimination entre civils et militaires est aussi remis en cause qui étend le champ de bataille bien au-delà des militaires. Les bombardements stratégiques sont le corolaire que dans une guerre totale, la population d’un État et ses ressources diverses sont mises au service d’un État afin de mener l’effort militaire.

Après 1945

Après 1945, il y a une transformation de la conflictualité internationale au travers de ce que Holsti appelle les guerres du troisième type. Quelles sont les transformations en Europe du point de vue militaire ?

La phase de 1945 à aujourd’hui du point de vue des guerres sur le continent européen est caractérisée, pour l’Europe occidentale, par le fait qu’il n’y a plus de guerre entre États. Cette période est singulière. En globalisant encore plus le constat, il n’y a pas eu depuis 1945 de guerres entre grandes puissances au niveau international, ce qui est une évolution relativement inouïe parce que dans la littérature des relations internationales, on avait tendance à privilégier les guerres entre grandes puissances. Il y a eu la Guerre froide entre le bloc soviétique et le bloc occidental, des guerres de faible intensité, mais les guerres de forte puissance ont disparu depuis 1945. Certains auteurs, historiens et théoriciens des relations internationales comme John Muller ont considéré que les guerres interétatiques traditionnelles ont disparu allant jusqu’à dire que les guerres interétatiques en tant que telles ont disparu. Muller considère qu’on va vers un déclin tendanciel des guerres interétatiques allant vers la disparition des guerres interétatiques.

La question qui se pose est de savoir s’il n’y a pas plutôt une transformation et une hétérogénéité des guerres interétatiques de moins en moins institutionnalisées et qui ne respectent pas les critères classiques, mais qui n’en sont pas moins des guerres interétatiques. Par exemple, est-ce que l’invasion de l’Irak en 2003 n’a pas été une guerre interétatique plutôt qu’une intervention militaropolitique. En novembre 2001, lorsque la coalisation américano-britannique a envahi l’Afghanistan, la rhétorique était non pas de mener une guerre contre l’Afghanistan, mais de mener une guerre contre le gouvernement illégitime des talibans avec le soutien du gouvernement légitime afghan. On légitimise en niant le caractère de gouvernement au leadership politique des forces armées combattues et en disant qu’on a été invité par les représentants légitimes de la population considère comme le noyau d’un État à venir. C’était le cas de l’Alliance du nord en Afghanistan, du Conseil national de transition en Libye en 2011 permettant de nier le caractère des conflits internationaux qui le sont pourtant.

Il et de plus en plus difficile aujourd’hui dans beaucoup de conflits armés de par le monde de faire une distinction stricte entre guerre civile, guerre interne et guerre interétatique. Avec le conflit en cours en Ukraine, il est difficile de décrire si c’est une guerre civile, car des acteurs externes comme la Russie peuvent mener à une interprétation de guerre entre Moscou et Kief. Aujourd’hui, la distinction même entre guerre civile et guerre interétatique est de plus en plus difficile à faire. Ce sont des conflits ayant des composantes étatiques et non étatiques. La distinction est de plus en plus floue. Il faut voir aussi que de nombreuses guerres civiles ou non étatiques ont une composante interétatique.

Depuis 1945, il n’y a pas eu de conflit entre États d’Europe occidentale à la différence de l’Europe centrale et orientale avec la guerre d’ex-Yougoslavie et les guerres de Transnistrie en 1992. Comment se fait-il que durant 60 ans, il n’y ait pas eu de guerre entre États d’Europe occidentale ?

Une explication technologique est qu’un des facteurs de ce point de vue mis en avant souvent par les théoriciens réalistes est que l’invention de l’arme atomique a rendu les guerres entre « grandes puissances » impossibles simplement parce que les armes nucléaires conduisent à la destruction mutuelle assurée. C’est un facteur qui a été utilisé afin d’expliquer la fin des guerres. D’une part, la France et le Royaume-Uni ayant l’arme atomique, ils ne peuvent plus rentrer en guerre, d’autre part, avec le parapluie nucléaire de l’OTAN pendant la Guerre froide, il y avait l’impossibilité de voir émerger des guerres interétatiques en Europe occidentale parce que le risque même d’un dérapage interétatique aurait été trop risqué. L’effet de discipline créé par l’arme nucléaire aurait rendu les guerres moins improbables et moins bénéfiques pour les États européens.

L’explication organisationnelle est l’avènement de la bureaucratie transnationale sous la forme de l’ « union », de l’Union de l’Europe occidentale ou encore de l’Union européenne qui bureaucratise de plus en plus la vie internationale et qui impose une même logique dans les relations entre gouvernements que celles qui prévalaient à travers la bureaucratisation des États. Pour Martin Shaw, le temps est une mise en commun du monopole de la violence légitime à travers de la bureaucratie de monopoles nationaux sur la violence légitime limitant la marge de main-d’œuvre des gouvernements européens et leur capacité à entrer en guerre les uns entre les autres.

On explique parfois le déclin de la guerre interétatique après 1945 par l’interdépendance économique et l’avènement de réseaux transnationaux, qui provoqueraient le fait que des régimes démocratiques ne se ferraient pas la guerre entre eux. Martin Shaw montre que c’est peut être moins la montée des interdépendances économiques qui ont conduit à la fin de la guerre interétatique en Europe occidentale que la création d’organisations telle que l’OTAN qui en marginalisant la guerre interétatique qui ont permis aux interdépendances économiques de se développer. Il met l’accent sur l’aspect organisationnel qui n’affecte plus seulement les gouvernements, mais aussi l’espace intergouvernemental notamment à travers l’avènement d’organisations internationales de plus en plus bureaucratisées et influentes.

Il y a une forte densité d’institutions dans le système international qui permet de résoudre les conflits de manière efficace et d’allouer les ressources rendant la guerre improbable et expliquant le déclin des guerres interétatique en Europe par le développement institutionnel. Ce sont des instances qui permettent de résoudre des conflits politiques autres que par la guerre. Les destructions des guerres totales ont fini selon John Muller par délégitimiser les guerres dans l’idéologie dominante des États occidentaux.

Conclusion : l’après 1945

Depuis 1648 avec les traités de Westphalie, il y a un déclin de la violence interpersonnelle et en même temps, il y a un caractère de plus en plus meurtrier des guerres. Depuis 1648, les guerres sont de moins en moins fréquentes, mais en même la tendance de long terme est celle de guerres de plus en plus meurtrières jusqu’en 1945. Mais il n’y a pas d’évolution linéaire avec des oscillations comme entre 1648 et 1789 et entre 1815 et 1914 correspondant à des périodes d’institutionnalisation de la guerre.

L’État est une machine de guerre qui pose les fondements de nouvelles formes de paix notamment à travers l’institutionnalisation des relations intergouvernementales et la création de bureaucraties transgouvernementales.

Notes

Bibliographie

Références