Historian and author Hardy McNeil shared his wisdom about the evolution of war and power-relations and speculated about conflict in the post-Cold War era in a speech yesterday afternoon.
McNeil, despite disclaiming his ability to predict the future, offered two alternative historical models as a replacement of the nation-state system that enabled massive powers like Napoleon to conquer Europe.
Introduced as a "mega-historian" by Martin Sherwin, director of the John Dickey Center for International Understanding, McNeil began his lecture, "The Future of War," by briefly tracing the history of warfare.
McNeil said the development of "recent warfare" dates back to the nation-state system, which emerged in 1650 and reached its climax with World War II.
But the traditional sources of community authority that enabled the rise of massive powers are "wearing out" and need to be replaced by larger or smaller peace-keeping institutions than currently exist, McNeil said.
McNeil said the ideology behind the United Nations as a "world-wide intervention toward peace" is similar to the large-scale nature of the Holy Roman Empire.
But the lack of central authority which doomed the Empire will limit the effectiveness of the United Nations unless it is given the power of taxation, McNeil said. Only then can the United Nations act as an autonomous peace-keeping authority in situations like Bosnia without depending on the support of individual nations like the United States.
McNeil proposed a second alternative that involves scaling down and intensifying the nation-state into "sub-nation-states." Under this scenario, societies like Russia, Japan, China and India could follow the nationalist models set by the Spartans, Zulus, Aztecs and even Nazis to create a "war-like mass of dedicated citizens" that draws strength from "fear of outsiders."
McNeil said he could not predict which alternative would emerge but stressed the need for "nurturing" to make human lives "bearable in an urban, commercial" world and to maintain peace.
In traditional societies parents were responsible for nurturing their children, but with the increasing trend of two-income households, the educational system must transmit these values instead, McNeil said.
Following the speech History Professor Michael Ermarth and Government Professor Michael Mastanduno gave short commentaries in which they agreed that nation-states are undergoing change, but questioned the precise effect of those changes on war.
Ermarth said the "911 Wars" being fought today- a total of 48 of them in the two and a half years since the end of the Cold War- are more complicated than the "total warfare" of the 20th Century. The wars fought since the Cold war respond to the emergency situations and tend to be fought within nations "with more passion... and intensity," Mastanduno said.
"War has a great future," Ermarth said. While the three speakers disagreed about the powers controlling war, they all realized that violence, in some form, will persist.
In a discussion after the speeches, audience members questioned the role of nuclear weapons and terrorism in post-Cold War society.
Although McNeil admitted nuclear weapons will not likely be used by the traditional superpowers, he said that "catastrophe is in our future."
The speech, which was sponsored by Dickey Center's Guardians of War and Peace Studies Fund, drew about 60 people, mostly non-students, to 105 Dartmouth Hall.
