Issue M002 of 26 February 2000

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The Great Powers in History

Subject: H-WORLD
Date: Fri, 9 Apr 1999 06:58:17 -0400
From: Patrick Manning 
Reply-To: H-NET List for World History 
To: H-WORLD@H-NET.MSU.EDU

From:   Rene Barendse, University of Leiden
        r.barendse@worldonline.nl

On Stephen Harvey's posting (April 7):

>Paul Kennedy advanced a very plausible thesis in "The Rise and Decline of
>the Great Powers", suggesting the failure of any medieval/early modern
>European power to establish empire led to a condition of robust
>intra-European competition (i.e., warfare, and the need to finance it)
>which was lacking in the other "civilizations" of the era (the Ottoman
>Empire, the Chinese Empire, the Moghul Empire).

This theory (whether in Kennedy's or Mc Niel's incarnation in `The Pursuit
of Power') is widely held - and therefore worth comment - as a typical
example of a plausible theory which immediately breaks down once you know
the `Orient' better - Jim would call it `Eurocentric' but it is perhaps
rather a result of  simple unfamiliarity with Orienticalica - The whole of
South Asia (let alone its `civilisation' presumably including Sri Lanka or
Burma) was never ruled by the Mughal Empire - even during Aurengzeb's
reign - and there was a constant rivalry between the Mughals and the
sultanates of Golcunda and Bijapur in the seventeenth century, Mughals and
Afghans in the sixteenth while the south of India always consisted of a
whelter of small states.

As to the Middle East: there were TWO empires in the Middle East: Ottomans
and Safavids who were involved in an intense military and religious
struggle from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century and there were hosts
of smaller states from the Central Asian khanates to Georgia. Also many of
the Ottoman provinces were to a large extent independent from the center -
and, still aside from this the Ottoman Empire had an unsettled `frontier'
problem in Arabia, the Crimea and Ethiopia, where basically the Empire had
constantly to keep on alert  for `tribal' (make that cossack in the Crimea)
invasions. Thus - the Ottomans had always to keep abreast of the latest
military technology.

It might be argued that such small units, city-states like Bhopal,
Bhaunagar, or Cochin in India, Meccha, Zeila, Hormuz, Aden or Massawa in
the Middle East (ever heard of these places? 'City-states are not convined
to Europe and Southeast Asia - again, ignorance breeds Euro- and
ethno-centrism) and small political entities like Idar, Savantvadi, Ardalan
or Kachetia (ever heard of ... ) existed more or less on the margins of the
imperial order in South Asia and the Middle East but as Jan de Vries has
argued much of European progress originates from a belt of city-states
extending from the Netherlands over the Rhineland and Alsatia to Lombardy
which existed more or less on the margin of empires too: France, Spain,
Austria, Russia and for some periods Hungary and the Rceszpublica.

What's that last one ? Ever heard of the Polish/Lithuanian Commonwealth ?
For that is problem number two with this theory. It does not explain Europe
very well either. Contributors to this list please keep this in mind:
EUROPE DOES NOT END ON THE ELBE AND THE ALPS -  ignorance of Eastern (and
Southern) Europe normally leads to faulty interpretations of European
history.

While the trend during the military revolution (or revolutions) in western
Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth century was towards the formations
of national states - in Eastern Europe the military revolutions bred
multinational conglomerate empires (Poland/Lithuania, Muscovy, potentially
Sweden and Austria) ruled by the nobility. And certainly no `capitalism':
in late medieval Russia there had been the thriving merchant-republic of
Novgorod - kind of Genoa and Venice of the far north. The destruction of
the city and the deportations of its inhabitants by Ivan II was symbolic
for the defeat `capitalism' and `democracy' suffered in Eastern Europe. As
Ivan III `Grozny' actually explained to prince Kurbsky Muscovy needed a
strong, authoritorian, state to protect Orthodoxy against foreign invasion.
This was also a central issue in the Thirdy years' war by the way.  Again,
in Southern Europe it bred the multinational Habsburg conglomerate - for
Spain consisted of several kingdoms: the realm of Navarra was strictly
speaking foreign country in personal union with Castille while Sicily was
not - the national state of Portugal and small kingdoms in Italy from
Piemonte and Tuscany or the duchies of Mantova or Urbino.

This has never been satisfactorily explained: the most esthetically
pleasing explanation is Wallerstein's who links the rise of empires in
Eastern Europe with the rise of serfdom and the consequent strengthening of
the nobility which was again linked to Eastern Europe's position in the
periphery of the capitalist world-system. Now, this explanation perfectly
holds for the Baltic (Estonia or Latvia) and for the Vistula valley but we
get into deep trouble when dealing with remote regions like Galicia or
Transylvania or Hungary which had little foreign trade of any importance.
And, second, we have to assume that Russia is very, very different while
its institutions show a remarkable resemblance to Lithuania (but not
Poland). (For strictly speaking - early modern Europe is a very complicated
place - Poland and Lithuania were two totally different states).

Regarding Muscovy it has been argued that the rise of serfdom and both the
strengthening of the nobility over the serfs and its reduction to the
status of semi-officials was the result of the impact of the military
revolution. Basically, the army outgrew what the very unproductive Russian
agriculture could support (Russia had the largest army of 17-18 th century
Europe - much of it also expensive cavalry) so that the state had to
`squeeze' agriculture by tightly regulating the life of the peasants. This
may also apply to Lithuania - though admittedly Lithuania was less
succesful than Muscovy.

Both of these explanations may hold to some degree at the same time - but,
anyhow, without going into this any further what I should stress is that
this theory does not hold for Europe either - in western Europe inter-state
rivalry produced some liberal national states, in Eastern Europe it
produced multi-national authoritarian empires. The theory is only plausible
if you define `Europe' very narrowly.

The problem being, obviously, for Eastern Europe how to confirm its
imperial legacy to West Europe's normative model of national states. A
model which frames the network of inter-state relations but excludes the
extra-territorial rights of minorities which had existed under the Empires
by definition - sovereignity can only be single. - (Or nominal minorities:
in pre-1940 Poland the Poles were only 60% of the population). `Happily'
for international stability this problem was solved in 1945 by the good
works of respectively the SS and the Red Army - 4 milion people belonging
to `minorities' were moved into their `national' teritory in 1945. Except,
of course, in Yugoslavia, but that problem is being solved right now.

As long as the international order is based on the Westfalen principle of
cuius regio eius religio (the king shall freely determine the religion of
his inhabitants inside his territory) and international law on a doctrine
of inalienable national sovereignity, we are going to keep tragedies like
Kossovo. And while the US now seems to underwrite the doctrine that
principles of international law may override national sovereignity OUTSIDE
its national borders, it would never, ever, consent to that WITHIN its
borders. Witness, for example, the US-opposition to any international
regulation and control regarding, say, polution, land-mines, or chemical
weapons when applied to its own industry or armed forces.

And, as long as that is the case, international attention and that of the
US are going to be fostered on violation of international law - regarding
minorities or human rights - if and when it is in the public relations'
interest of the US or for the relations with its allies. Somewhere amongst
thousands of news items on attrocities in Kossovo I read a few words'
notice that the Sudanese army killed more that 50.000 South Sudanese last
year - but who is ever going to plea for international intervention to save
the South Sudanese (or, say, in Nigeria on behalf of the Ogoni) ?


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