With the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty last week (as the FPA European Union Blog reports), I am inclined to revisit Victoria Tin-bor Hui’s book, War and State Formation in Ancient China and Early Modern Europe. Published in 2005, Hui’s book compares Ancient China during the Warring States Period (in which the balance of power failed due to Qin expansionism) to Early Modern Europe (in which the balance of power succeeded, preventing any single state from dominating the continent). The Qin state began as one weak state among many, but ultimately gained power and conquered all of Ancient China, uniting China under Qin command. However, Hui writes:
Domination-seekers in early modern Europe failed because they did not follow the logic of domination fully. If the balance of power and the rising costs of expansion seemed insurmountable, it was because European states did not develop the strength of the lion and the wit of the fox, as urged by Machiavelli. While European rulers widely practiced counterbalancing strategies, they only belatedly pursued self-strengthening reforms and rarely employed ancient-Chinese-style ruthless strategems against one another.
In other words, European states, though they spawned Machiavelli, were not as Machiavellian as the Ancient Chinese states. The evolution of the European Union, and the Lisbon Treaty in particular, makes me think of another Machiavellian idea to which I frequently refer, that being that “there are two ways of fighting: by law or by force,” and that the “first way is natural to men, and the second to beasts.” Could this notion apply to overcoming the balance of power? Perhaps Ancient China represents one mode of overcoming the balance of power – unification by force – while Europe represents another – unification by law.
This notion is certainly premature, if not entirely incorrect. The future may reveal that there are insurmountable limits to the extent to which Europe will unify. Indeed, many believed that if Tony Blair won the EU presidency, the victory would lead the EU to function with greater power and cohesion in the international arena. Thus, the failure of Tony Blair’s presidential bid would seem to indicate the opposite. Furthermore, Western Europe is no stranger to conflicts between national sovereignty and supranational legal mechanisms. The doctrine of rex imperator in regno suo est (a king is emperor in his own kingdom) stretches back to at least the 12th century and was accepted by European princes and the papacy. The limits of the EU to encroach upon the sovereignty of its members may in some ways duplicate the limits set on papal intrusion during the Early Modern European era.
Also, Europe originally used the law to codify, rather than surmount, the balance of power. As Hui notes, Revolutionary and Napoleonic France adopted some reforms that resembled those of the Qin, including instituting universal conscription as opposed to relying on mercenaries. France was in fact the first European state to utilize Qin-esque tactics in pursuit of continental unification via conquest. However, Hui does not address what followed Napoleon’s defeat. European leaders established the Congress system, which was essentially an international institutional mechanism geared toward curbing future Napoleon-style attempts at continental conquest. Law, along with force, became a mechanism of preserving the balance of power.
After World War II, though, European unification was the proposed means to curb Napoleon-esque (then considered Hitler-esque) expansionism. Unification was designed to serve the same purpose as the Congress system: to prevent domination of Western Europe by a single state. However, in terms of the balance of power, the two strategies are quite different. Unification aims to obliterate the balance of power by fusing its components. How far this fusion will go is a matter for mere speculation. But perhaps the future will reveal, to borrow Machiavelli’s terminology, that Europe chose the man while China chose the beast.
