Page 112 - Conflitti Militari e Popolazioni Civili - Tomo I

112 XXXIV Congresso della CommIssIone InternazIonale dI storIa mIlItare • CIHm

effect would not be renouncing recourse to force in international relations, but simply the
disappearance of declarations of war and that «an imperialism based on economical grounds
shall naturally try to create a world situation in which it can openly use its economical instru-
ments of power to the extent required, such as restricting credit, blocking raw materials, de-
valuating foreign currencies, etc. It would consider as ‘extra-economic violence’ the attempt
of a people or another group of humans to avoid the effects of such ‘pacific’ means»
Schmitt’s most incisive observation was the following: «If a State fights its political enemy
in the name of humanity, its war is not for the sake of humanity, but a war for which against
its adversary a given State tries to appropriate a universal concept, in which it can identify
itself (at the expense of its enemy) ... Humanity is a particularly suitable tool for imperialistic
expansion and it is a specific tool of economic imperialism in its ethical-humanitarian form.
On this matter, a saying of Proudhon holds true, although it needs an amendment: he, who
talks of humanity, is trying to deceive you» . On this subject we shall quote for the last time
29
Schmitt, who wrote in 1929: «By now we have learned the secret law behind this word and
we know that, today, the most terrible war can only be carried out in the name of peace» .
30
These were the remote origins of an Orwellian-style new-language which emerged back in
1914 in H.G. Wells’ slogan on «the war to end war», the peak of idealist illusions (or hypoc-
risies?), and reached its apex in 1999 with the oxymoron of the «humanitarian war» .
31
The moral condemnation of war even stronger after the Second World War, also owing
to the immense devastation it caused. Terrorizing and killing civilians by air raids was one
of the tactics used. The partisan resistance and, above all, its repression severely affected
civil populations. Yet, the removal of the use of military forces from the spectrum of pos-
sible options was a lot stronger in the defeated countries, namely Germany, Italy and Japan,
than in winner countries. A general war was made impossible by the balance of terror: the
so-called mutual assured destruction . The war in Europe was only “cold.” The Old Conti-
32
nent remained in peace for 45 years, but that period was not as much peaceful outside of its
borders, where the two blocs clashed in the so-called «proxy wars», ranging from the wars in
Korea and Vietnam to many communist guerrilla warfare. While a fake, «rich and abstract»
war was being fought in Europe, a real, dirty, «poor and concrete» war was being fought
elsewhere, in which many of the elements that characterized the conflicts of the post-bipolar
period were already present . Already «the cold war scoffs at all the classical distinctions
33
between war, peace and neutrality, politics and economics, military and civilian, combatants
and non-combatants» .
34
29 Schmitt, Il concetto di ‘politico’, cit., pp. 139.
30 C. Schmitt, [L’epoca delle neutralizzazioni e delle spoliticizzazioni, now in id., Le categorie del ‘politico’ ,
cit., p. 182.
31 See M. Howard, War and the liberal conscience, Oxford, 1981 [series of lessons dedicated to the contradic-
tions of liberal pacifism], p. 74.
32 See, for a brief but precise presentation, M. de Leonardis, The Cold War as Total War: the Interaction of Mili-
tary Strategies and Diplomacy from “Massive Retaliation” to “Flexible Response”, in The Total War. The
Total Defence, 1789-2000, Acta of the 26 International Congress of Military History, Stockholm, 2001, pp.
th
383-394.
33 The adjectives quoted appear in E. Galli della Loggia’s Il mondo contemporaneo (1945-1980), Bologna,
1982, p. 25.
34 C. Schmitt, Premessa, March 1963, in Id. Il concetto di ‘politico’, cit., pp. 99-100.