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April
18, 1999
Best Treaty; The Empire Strikes Out
The
unholy emergence of the nation-state
By
Fareed Zakaria
International treaties are generally agreements between the strong and the weak in which the latter agrees to do what the former asks. As the ancient historian Thucydides put it, "The strong do what they can; the weak do what they must." But some treaties also mark the birth of whole new concepts of international relations.
In 1648, after three decades of bloody warfare and three years of negotiation, two such documents were signed in northwest Germany. Together, they constituted the Peace of Westphalia, probably the most important treaty of the millennium. It ushered in the modern state system that governs our world -- the very system that is now, 350 years later, being undermined by transnational forces like the euro, the Internet and Amnesty International. The Peace of Westphalia brought an end to the Thirty Years' War, the deadliest conflict in history until then, in which perhaps 10 million people died. The war began when Protestant German princes revolted against Ferdinand II, their nominal sovereign and head of the Holy Roman Empire, a confederation of mostly German-speaking principalities. Ferdinand, the Hapsburg Emperor, championed the Counter-Reformation, which sought to restore Catholic power in Europe. Protestant Sweden allied with the German princes against him; so did Catholic France. Voil, Europe had a full-scale war. While France's move showed that canny diplomacy knows no god, it was religion that made the Thirty Years' War so important. Compromise was impossible. Either the Pope was Christ's vicar on earth or he wasn't. Protestants were heretics or heroes. You couldn't split the difference.
At war's end, the big losers were the Hapsburgs of Austria, who reigned over the Holy Roman Empire; much of the treaty was devoted to parceling out their land to the winners, the unholy alliance led by France and Sweden. But the treaty had larger consequences. It ended the idea that Europe was a single Christian empire, governed spiritually by the Pope and temporally by the Holy Roman Emperor. The treaty also gingerly extended the idea of religious tolerance. The rights of private worship, liberty of conscience and emigration were explicitly granted to those outside Hapsburg domains. Moreover, the rulers of various principalities were allowed to choose the official religion of their lands, a power the Pope and the Emperor had bitterly refused to grant. Westphalia marked the end of a world of universal values and the rise of national interests in its place. It defrocked priests and empowered princes, and it made the state the motor of history.
Since Westphalia, there have been plenty of challenges to the state; think of the power of the Hudson's Bay Company, the East India Company or of private bankers like the Rothschilds and Morgans. Still, the nation-state has had a good run. Only now is it evolving into something more complex. The modern national leader must navigate through such constraints as interest rates, advocacy groups and the international media. Meanwhile, the world has witnessed the end of the ideological conflict that has been this century's religious war. There is one ideology left standing, liberal democratic capitalism, and one institution with universal reach, the United States. Not since the waning of Catholic power in the 17th century has one entity spread its values so widely. If the past is any guide, America's primacy will provoke growing resistance. The 21st century may well bring a struggle between yet another universal system of values and national power.