Non-combatancy and Formal War

Abstract

The modern characterization of the combatant came to the fore in the age of nation states and formal war that emerged at the end of the Thirty Years’ War (1618–48). The Reformation, and the religious wars that followed it, had changed the political and intellectual context of war. Papal authority, long weakened, was repudiated utterly by the Protestant states. The centralization of political authority culminated in the development of the large nation states of England, France, Spain, Sweden and the Netherlands. The Thirty Years’ War had begun as a religious conflict between Protestants and Catholics in Germany but developed into a bloody struggle for the balance of power in Europe when, as a Catholic victory seemed imminent, the Danes, Swedes and French intervened to stop the Habsburgs gaining control of Germany. The war ended in 1648 with the Treaty of Westphalia which ended the supremacy of the Holy Roman Empire (leaving the Emperor with only nominal control) and recognized the sovereignty of Switzerland, the Netherlands and the German states.

It’s good in practice but will it work in theory?

Garret FitzGerald¹