Classic Works - Classics of Strategy and Diplomacy

Alberico Gentili, De Jure Belli Libri Tres (1588-1599)

July 07, 2015

Alberico Gentili (1552-1608) was an Italian jurist, practicing lawyer and professor of law at Oxford University, who is consistently mentioned as a key figure at the very origins of modern international law. Just a few years before Hugo Grotius, Gentili took substantial steps in the development of a secular jurisprudence. Yet, his standing as a “pioneer” of the modern concepts of international law has been overshadowed by the preeminence of Grotius, the Dutch jurist generally regarded as the father of international law.

Emmerich de Vattel, The Law of Nations (1758)

Carolina Kenny

August 07, 2015

The Law of Nations had a particular impact on the American revolutionaries of the late 18th Century and early 19th Century. Vattel’s ideas were utilized to argue against the tax burden which the British Crown levied on the American colonies. Early American lawyers and jurists were exuberant Vattelophiles. In 1775, Benjamin Franklin received three copies of a new edition on behalf of the Continental Congress and, in thanking his friend Charles Dumas for sending them from the Netherlands, he remarked that they “came to us in good season, when the circumstances of a rising State make it necessary to frequently consult the law of nations” and that “[the book] has been continually in the hands of the members of our Congress now sitting."

Francisco de Vitoria, Relectiones (1538-1539)

Carolina Kenny

July 03, 2015

War is essential in Vitoria’s work because Vitoria’s concept of sovereignty is elaborated mainly in terms of the sovereign’s right to wage war. As Vitoria constructs a law of nations, administered by the sovereign, he reintroduces Christian norms as universal rules endorsed by jus gentium. Evangelizing is authorized not by divine law but by the law of nations, and may be likened now to travelling and trading. Vitoria argues that “…ambassadors are inviolable in the law of nations (jus gentium). The Spanish are the ambassadors of Christendom, and hence the barbarians are obliged at least a fair hearing and not expel them.” Thus, acceptance of the Christian faith could not be forced and should not serve as an excuse for conquest.

Herodotus, The Histories (5th Century BCE)

Patrick J. Garrity +

September 30, 2008

Herodotus, who wrote a generation after the Persian Wars, puts these battles in the context of a great clash of civilizations, between Greek freedom and Asian despotism. He seeks to explain why and how a relatively poor, small, and divided collection of Greek-speakers were able to defeat a much larger, wealthier, and centralized empire. On the battlefield itself, on land and at sea, the Greeks were better disciplined and employed superior close-order tactics, such as staying in ranks rather than attempting to kill the greatest number of enemy soldiers in open combat. But Herodotus' generic answer reflected the views of his contemporaries and greatly influenced the West's understanding of itself: "As long as the Athenians were ruled by a despotic government, they had no better success in war than any of their neighbors. Once the yoke was flung off, they proved the finest fighters in the world."

Immanuel Kant, Perpetual Peace: A Philosophic Sketch (1795)

Zachary Bennett

January 19, 2016

The classic source of modern idealism in international relations theory is Immanuel Kant’s 1795 essay “Perpetual Peace: A Philosophic Sketch.” There, the German philosopher (1724-1804) takes up the question of whether perpetual peace is the preserve of men in their graves. Answering in the negative, Kant delineates the conditions necessary for the establishment of perpetual peace among nations, argues that statesmen are morally obligated to seek those conditions, and assures us that those conditions will eventually obtain. He envisions the world slowly progressing toward a federation of independent republics at peace with one another.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, “Abstract” and “Judgment” of Saint-Pierre’s Project for Perpetual Peace in Europe (1761, 1782)

Zachary Bennett

August 04, 2015

A word should be said about Rousseau’s place among the various schools of international relations theory. Because he wrote so little about international relations directly and because his one published work on the subject is so ambiguous, his views defy simple categorization. His approval of the goal of perpetual peace and dissatisfaction with the continuation of the state of nature among nations would suggest that he belongs among the modern idealists. Yet he evinces none of the modern idealists’ confidence that this goal would be achieved or dissatisfaction remedied. Here, as in other areas of his thought, Rousseau offers much more of a diagnosis of the modern condition than a cure for it.

Jeremy Bentham, Principles of International Law (1786-1789/1843)

Carolina Kenny

August 20, 2015

The older phrase law of nations, according to Bentham, refers to a certain discursive space only through the force of custom, or convention. However, he believed that a more appropriate designation should go beyond mere convention. According to Bentham, the phrase law of nations is a sign relying on the mediation of convention. Without the convention, "the force of custom," the phrase law of nations might be understood as one designating the domestic, municipal law of diverse nations. On the other hand, Bentham explains, that international is a term that stands in no need of the mediation of custom and convention. To put it more simply, Bentham proposed to replace the concept of the law of nations with that of the law between nations.

John Maynard Keynes, The Economic Consequences of the Peace (1919)

A. Bradley Potter

July 29, 2015

In 2014, a slew of new books examining the “war to end all wars” appeared on the shelves of libraries and booksellers around the world. The centennial of that bloody conflict seemed an appropriate time to revisit its causes and consequences. While some of these efforts offered genuinely new insights, most did not. Beyond these freshly bound attempts to encapsulate one of the most destructive events of human history, there is a rich, much older set of works that any serious student of strategy and diplomacy should consider. Among these, The Economic Consequences of the Peace holds a special place.

Machiavelli, The Art of War (1521)

Patrick J. Garrity +

January 16, 2009

In The Art of War, the only one of his major writings published during his lifetime, Machiavelli sets out to consider that topic from the standpoint of the superintending military commander. The Art of War is divided into a preface and seven books (chapters), presented as a series of dialogues that take place in the garden of Cosimo Rucellai, a friend of Machiavelli, who had died two years before the book was published. Cosimo and his guests, including a silent Machiavelli, respectfully question a visitor, Fabrizio Colonna, who is treated as a military authority. Fabrizio discusses how an army should be raised, trained, organized, deployed and employed. His model is the Roman Legion of the Republic, which he argues should be adapted to the contemporary situation of Renaissance Florence.

Montesquieu, The Spirit of the Laws (1748)

Zachary Bennett

July 24, 2015

In addition to elucidating Montesquieu’s account of the liberalizing and pacifying effects of commerce, this essay will examine Montesquieu’s reflections on the practical foreign policy implications of the right of national self-preservation. Of particular importance in this connection are his accounts of the variation in foreign policy according to regime type, the value of confederation, and the role and limits of conquest. Examining these reflections, along with Montesquieu’s praise of England as the best regime, will help us to determine the character of a Montesquieuian foreign policy.