engleski

Hans Morgenthau and the roots of total wars in the 20th century

The starting point of this paper is the famous line that “the Thirty Years’ War began as a religious but ended as a political war, while World War I began as political but ended as a religious one.” Drawing from the writings of H.J. Morgenthau and his 1940s critique of political idealism, this paper will argue that secularized religions (ideologies) in the post-1918 international system re-introduced the just war concept in order to impose their world-view. Thus, for the past century the sources of violence in the contemporary international order are characterized by the identification of particular national interests with universal moral principles, making open-ended violence endemic to the system. Three supporting arguments will be presented: first, the international system (17-20 century) was not amoral, quite on the contrary there was a strong moral code among statesmen as an effective ordering principle of international affairs ; second, the re-emergence of just war principle in the 20th century withered away with the political and legal international culture of the reason of the state as binding principle of international system ; third, the lack of this culture is evident in inherently instable international system and the forms of violence: great powers wage wars in a form of “police intervention” against sovereign states, while among weaker states wars exhibit the elements of total war.

Morgentahu, Prvi svjetski rat, međunarodni sustav, etika, politika

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