Hegel,History,Hostility: The Persistence of War in Hegel’s Political Philosophy

Fundamentals of Hegel’s Approach to the State

In the preface to the Elements of the Philosophy of Right, Hegel briefly outlines the parameters of his investigation. “This treatise,” he writes, “insofar as it deals with political science, shall be nothing other than the attempt to comprehend and portray the state as an inherently rational entity” and must also “distance itself as far as possible from the obligation to construct a state as it ought to be” (1998, Preface; hereafter PR). Rather than construct an ideal state, Hegel aims to show what is required in order to recognize the modern state in its various guises. Rather than simply reproduce the world, philosophy seeks to self-consciously formulate concepts adequate to reality in the fullness of its development (Brooks 2013, 152–54). Unlike a purely descriptive approach to the study of politics, Hegel’s statements do not form facts but rather provide categories through which facts become meaningful; and, unlike a purely normative approach, they do not so much demand actions as outline the arena within which actions make sense (Verene 1976, 173). This framework does not map onto the exact characteristics of any existent state, though elements of the underlying principles may be present. In Hegel’s words, “we must not have any particular states or particular institutions in mind; instead, we should consider the Idea, this actual God, in its own right. Any state…invariably has the essential moments of its existence within itself (provided it is one of the more advanced states of our time)” (PR §258). As Lee puts it, one must have some conception of what a well-functioning state looks like at a given historical juncture in order to judge whether a state is deficient in some respect (2017, 206).

One might worry Hegel’s apotheosis of the state—“this actual God”—crushes individuality (Gregor 2012, 16–28). ³ Yet for Hegel recognition of the particularity of individuals gives the modern state its value. Hegel argues the “essence of the modern state is that the universal should be linked with the complete freedom of particularity and the well-being of individuals” (PR §260A). Hegel consistently refers to the distinction between antiquity and modernity in terms of what he calls the right of subjective freedom (PR §124, §261A; similarly, Gordon 2000, 308; Lee 2017, 207). This freedom only has actual existence in the state because only in the state do particular human beings become persons, that is, relational beings recognized by others (PR §71). In the modern state, one way the individual’s subjective freedom is preserved is in the right to choose one’s estate. Hegel explains that in the question of which particular estate the individual will belong to “the ultimate and essential determinant is subjective opinion and the particular arbitrary will, which are accorded their right, their merit, and their honor in this sphere” (PR §206). While the individual appears as something of infinite worth and thus divine on his own, he stands as something particular and finite in relation to the state, which appears universal and divine compared to him. Yet this does not give the state the right to trample the individual: “the universality of the end cannot make further progress without the personal knowledge and volition of the particular individuals, who must retain their rights. Thus, the universal must be activated, but subjectivity on the other hand must be developed as a living whole. Only when both moments are present in full measure can the state be regarded as articulated and truly organized” (ibid.).

Freedom, for Hegel, consists in the recognition of this unity. A one-sided emphasis on either the individual or the state undermines the dialectical relationship constitutive of freedom: “the state emerges only at the…stage…at which the momentous unification of self-sufficient individuality with universal substantiality takes place” (PR §33A). Insofar as freedom is the end of the state, the state “is freedom in its most concrete shape, which is subordinate only to the supreme absolute truth of the world spirit” (ibid.). To the extent that the end constitutes the nature of the thing, individuals can only be what they are within the state, since history shows freedom is the nature of persons. Consequently, “it is only through being a member of the state that the individual himself has objectivity, truth, and ethical life. Union as such is itself the true content and end” (PR §258). The highest freedom, then, consists in the individual’s identification with a state which in turn recognizes his or her universal rights and particular welfare, secures space to pursue subjective ends, and grants membership to a larger community of meaning and value.

War and Innenpolitik

Nevertheless, individuals are forgetful. During periods of peace, they lose sight of the dialectical relationship between themselves and the state, and mediating institutions such as the family retreat into private existence (Farneth 2017, 16). “In peace,” writes Hegel, “the bounds of civil life are extended, all its spheres become firmly established, and in the long run, people become stuck in their ways. Their particular characteristics become increasingly rigid and ossified. But the unity of the body is essential to the health, and if its parts grow internally hard, the result is death” (PR §324). War serves as a political educator for citizens of the modern state, reminding them that their good is tied to the good of the state as a whole (S. Smith 1983, 625; Jaeger 2002, 508). Because of this, Hegel continues, “Not only do peoples emerge from wars with added strength, but nations troubled by civil dissension gain internal peace as a result of wars with their external enemies” (PR §324A). In the Phenomenology of Spirit, Hegel puts it more vividly:

In order not to let…the [communal] spirit evaporate, government has from time to time to shake them to their core by war. By this means…the individuals who, absorbed in their own way of life, break loose from the whole and strive after the inviolable independence and security of the person, are made to feel in the task laid on them their lord and master, death. Spirit, by thus throwing into the melting-pot the stable existence of these systems, checks their tendency to fall away from the ethical order… The negative essence shows itself to be the real power of the community (Hegel 1977, 272).

War, then, provides the occasion for the individual’s recognition of his unity with the state, or, what is the same thing, consciousness of his freedom. The negative relationship, exemplified in the state’s attempts to remain independent and self-determining externally, educates the individual to the affirmative power of the state internally.

Given these statements, one can see why some scholars find similarities between Hegel’s ideas and those of fascists or totalitarians. Carl Popper saw them as evidence Hegel’s theory implies “war is good in itself” (1945, 279). Carl Schmitt’s affirmation that Hegel “remains everywhere political in the decisive sense” (2007, 62) provides support for this view, given Schmitt’s own reputation as the “crown jurist of the Third Reich.” ⁴ As is well known, the specifically political distinction for Schmitt is the distinction between friend and enemy, which “denotes the utmost degree of intensity of a union or separation” (2007, 26). Friendship and enmity “receive their real meaning precisely because they refer to the real possibility of physical killing” (2007, 33). Gopal Balakrishnan observes “many of the political dynamics pitting friend against enemy resemble the dialectic of self and other as a struggle for recognition” (2002, 112). As Burns notes, “both Hegel and Schmitt took the view that solidarity, cohesion, unity and social stability at home, the creation of a ‘we’ or an ‘us’, depends on the existence of something which is other” (Burns 2014, 330; also Abizadeh 2005).

However, we must keep two things in mind. First, Hegel does not think the unity of individual and state has significance in just any state. Hegel is theorizing the rational, differentiated modern state, which institutionalizes freedom. “Imperfect states,” says Hegel, “are those in which the Idea of the state is still invisible” (PR §260). Hegel’s ideal state is not the Prussian, French, or English state, though these states may have elements of the ideal state insofar as they embody freedom. Just as his analysis of the modern state penetrates the variety of shapes modern states take, Hegel’s analysis of war aims to look beyond war’s particular forms to find its underlying necessity (Verene 1976, 179).

What, then, necessitates war? Internally, war is an ethical necessity rather than a causal or logical one (Walt 1989, 115; Jaeger 2002, 507). For Hegel:

It is necessary that the finite – such as property and life – should be posited as contingent, because contingency is the concept of the finite. On the one hand, this necessity assumed the shape of a natural power… But in the ethical essence, i.e. the state, nature is deprived of this power, and necessity is elevated to a work of freedom, to something ethical in character. The transience of the finite now becomes a willed evanescence… War is that condition in which the vanity of temporal things and temporal goods – which tends at other times to be a merely pious phrase – takes on a serious significance (PR §324).

In nature, people are born, grow old, and die involuntarily. In the state, death becomes voluntary through war such that the state conquers death, elevating man qua citizen to freedom over natural existence. ⁵ War serves as the memento mori of the secular realm (Mertens 1995, 678; Avineri 1961, 466). Whereas the Christian obtains freedom over death through willingness to die in the imitation of Christ, the citizen of the modern state obtains this freedom through willingness to die for the state. In both cases, death is an evil whose spiritual significance lies not in dying itself but in the willingness to die. ⁶ Consequently, Hegel provides the proviso that “To risk one’s life is certainly superior to simply fearing death, but it is also purely negative and therefore indeterminate and valueless in itself. Only a positive end and content can give significance to such courage” (PR §328). While Hegel thinks war is necessary, he does not elevate it as an end in itself. Self-sacrifice is to serve a purpose, which in the modern state is the preservation of freedom. War is a necessary evil, rather than an end in itself (Jaeger 2002, 507; Brooks 2013, 136).

Since war occurs, Hegel must determine its proper place in the modern constitution. Like the estates of trade, industry, civil service, and so forth, the estate of valor serves this purpose: “The fact that the armed power of the state becomes a standing army and that the vocation for the particular task of defending it becomes an estate is [a result of] the same necessity whereby its other particular moments, interests, and functions become estates” (PR §326). Although the sacrifice of individuality for the safety of the state is a universal duty, this duty counts as only one moment in the state among all the other duties and functions required for the state’s survival (PR §325). Since the modern state preserves the subjective freedom of individuals, individuals choose their estates, including the military estate.

However, Hegel notes that “in a situation of crisis – whether in internal or external affairs – it is around the simple concept of sovereignty that the organism and all the particular spheres of which it formerly consisted rally, and it is to this sovereignty that the salvation of the state is entrusted, while previously legitimate functions are sacrificed” (PR §278). When sovereignty is at risk, the state can sacrifice some of its normal functions in order to save itself. Here, too, Hegel anticipates Schmitt’s definition of the sovereign as “he who decides on the exception” (2005, 5), wherein the decision “means the suspension of the entire existing order” (2005, 12). Yet, unlike Schmitt, Hegel thinks modern states can tolerate individuality even in times of danger. In a note to §270, Hegel says of conscientious objectors, “although they reject outright…the defense of the state against its enemies, they may be allowed to fulfill this duty by substituting another service instead.” The strength of the modern state is such that it can bear those who refuse to defend it such as Quakers and Anabaptists. War, then, has its proper place in the estate of valor, and the state should tolerate those who refuse to fight.

In sum, Hegel has three main concerns in his statements about war and Innenpolitik. First, war serves as a political educator for the citizens. Individuals learn through war that their particular good finds its meaning in the good of the whole. Second, this political education in war serves to renew the ethical health of the state. War ensures that civil society, which tends to become all-encompassing in times of peace, does not consume the ethical sphere (Mertens 1995, 674). Third, war necessitates the creation of the estate of valor in which courage achieves objective reality. Its meaning is “to give its existence to the ideality within itself, i.e. to sacrifice itself” (PR §327A).

War and Außenpolitik

From the perspective of external politics, war appears a necessary evil arising from two features of interstate relations. The first is the lack of power above states capable of adjudicating disputes between states, meaning states may have to resort to force to overcome impasses. The second is a consequence of the first, namely, states are the sovereign actors on the world stage. Sovereignty, moreover, puts states in opposition to one another as they strive to maintain their independence, though opposition does not always lead to war. Although Hegel thinks these two features of international politics preclude the possibility of a perpetual peace, he finds perpetual war just as improbable since wars exist to settle disputes and thus to come to an end.

First, Hegel begins his discussion of international law by highlighting the anarchic structure of the international system. ⁷ Although “the position of private persons is that they are subject to the authority of a court which implements what is right in itself” (PR §330A), the position of states is different from the position of private persons living under a government. Even if the “relation between states ought also to be inherently governed by right,” Hegel thinks this “ought” always remains abstract in international politics because “no power is present to decide what is right in itself in relation to the state and to actualize such decisions” and “in worldly affairs, that which has being in itself ought also to possess power” (ibid.; also Brudner 2017, 338). For an abstract moral imperative to become concrete, it requires power. The problem is that the nation-state is the highest power on the earth (PR §331). As a result, Hegel concludes the “relationship between states is a relationship of independent units which make mutual stipulations but at the same time stand above these stipulations” (ibid.). International agreements always remain contingent on each state’s willingness to uphold them.

Although international law does not have the same authority as domestic law in actuality, Hegel thinks conflicts in the international sphere are conflicts of legitimate rights which sometimes have to be settled by means of war. For states to be subject to judgments of right, they would have to stand in relation to some higher power as citizens stand in relation to the state. The lack of an adjudicating power in the international sphere means that “if no agreement can be reached between particular wills, conflicts between states can be settled only by war” (PR §334). Avineri takes this to mean that whenever wars break out it is because two sets of rights, legitimate in their own way, clash (1972, 202). ⁸ He bases his interpretation on Hegel’s statements in The German Constitution, where wars arise because:

Each party grounds its behavior on rights and accuses the other of an infringement of a right. The right of one state A is infringed by state B in a right a which accrues to A, but state B avers that it has upheld its right b and that this is not to be taken as an infringement of the right of A. The public takes sides; each party claims to have right on its side; and both parties are right. It is just the rights themselves which come into contradiction with one another (Hegel 1964, 209).

Such conflicts of rights are possible in the international sphere because of the peculiar status of international rights. Hegel defines an international right as the interest of one state, acknowledged and settled by treaties (Hegel 1964, 210). States generally uphold a variety of interests through treaties, so conflicts of interests become conflicts of rights in the international politics. Hegel concludes that if neither party is willing to give up its right, war has to settle the conflict “precisely because both contradictory rights are equally genuine; thus a third thing, i.e. war, must make them unequal so that they can be unified, and this happens when one gives way to the other” (ibid.). ⁹ Since it provides the means whereby states settle conflicting and equally legitimate rights, war is a necessary international institution.

Second, Hegel thinks war remains recurrent because modern states must strive to preserve their independence. According to Hegel, “it is plain to see that two self-sufficient entities cannot constitute a unity but must certainly give rise to a conflict whereby either the whole is destroyed or unity is restore by force” (PR §272). Within domestic politics, the state establishes unity among self-sufficient individuals through the application of law. In the international sphere, however, there is no power above states which would foreclose the possibility of conflict between states seeking their own self-sufficiency. One can indeed see how the concept of self-sufficiency places states at odds with one another, since the concept implies a self-help (S. Smith 1989, 162).

Nevertheless, this aspect of Hegel’s theory is complex and easily misunderstood. For Hegel, “The people as state [das Volk als Staat] is the spirit in its substantial rationality and immediate actuality, and is therefore the absolute power on earth” (PR §331; translation emended). ¹⁰ As such, the state has an “absolute entitlement to be a sovereign and independent power in the eyes of others” (ibid.). The problem is that this “entitlement is purely formal” (ibid.). Whether a state receives “recognition, which implies that [its form and content] are identical, also depends on the perception and will of the other state” (ibid.). In other words, modern states overcome the gap between natural and artificial because they consist of a people (immediate actuality) organized by a rationally articulated constitution (substantial rationality). As such, they represent the culmination of process of development, the previous stages of which were necessarily lopsided, overemphasizing either the nation (as with the Greeks) or the state (as with the Romans). Although modern states are formally sovereign, whether a particular state recognizes others’ claims to sovereignty depends upon their possessing sufficient power to enforce their claims in the event of a struggle. This is especially clear in Hegel’s remark that “When Napoleon said before the Peace of Campo Formio ‘the French Republic is no more in need of recognition than the sun is’, his words conveyed no more than that strength of existence [Existenz] which itself carries with it a guarantee of recognition, even if it is not expressly formulated” (PR §331A). Since a people insufficiently strong to guarantee the recognition of their sovereignty might fail to “be regarded as a state” in the eyes of other states (ibid.), there arises a struggle for recognition among states.

Like persons, modern states have both formal and substantive relations to entities like themselves. If a people should fail to receive either formal recognition through treaties with other states or substantive recognition in their interactions, that people could not be regarded as constituting a sovereign state. For only through recognition do states gain individuality in the Hegelian sense of the term (Avineri 1961, 468–69; 1972, 199–200; S. Smith 1983, 627–28; Jaeger 2002, 500–501). For Hegel, “Individuality, as exclusive being-for-itself, appears as the relation [of the state] to other states, each of which is independent” (PR §322). However, the concept of independence entails negation, since to be independent is to not be dependent on another. ¹¹ Insofar as independence characterizes the modern state, this negative relationship is predicated of the state in itself, appearing only accidentally as the relationship between one state and another. Hegel concludes this negative relation “is that aspect whereby the substance, as the state’s absolute power over everything individual and particular, over life, property, and the latter’s rights, and over the wider circles within it, gives the nullity of such things an existence and makes it present to the consciousness” (PR §323). Although sovereignty is fundamentally a claim regarding internal rule, it gives rise to the contingent opposition of states in the international sphere. Sovereignty is the state’s absolute claim to rule itself, but this positive internal right results in negative external relations between states.

Consequently, Hegel’s views on war in internal and external politics converge on the concept of sovereignty. Hegel thinks “this determination whereby the interests and rights of individuals are posited as a transient moment is at the same time their positive aspect, i.e. that aspect of their individuality which is not contingent and variable, but has being in and for itself” (PR §324). Internally, sovereignty provides the basis for ethical life in war by positing the contingency of material goods. Externally, sovereignty is the negative claim which depending on circumstances may occasion conflict. Although the occasion is contingent, “war should not be regarded,” Hegel concludes, “as a purely external contingency” because whatever “is by nature contingent is subject to contingencies, and this fate is therefore itself a necessity” (PR §324). War, then, is necessary, even though the particular cause of any given war is contingent. Unlike Kant, Hegel thinks the state qua state entails war’s occurrence, as Hedley Bull correctly noted (2012, 238).

On the one hand, this leads Hegel to think it is impossible to know perpetual peace will one day occur. This is partly because Kant’s notion of perpetual peace is incompatible with the individuality of modern states:

Kant proposed a league of sovereigns to settle disputes between states… But the state is an individual, and negation is an essential component of individuality. Thus, even if a number of states join together as a family, this league, in its individuality, must generate opposition and create an enemy… wars will nevertheless occur whenever they lie in the nature of the case; the seeds germinate once more, and talk falls silent in the face of the solemn recurrences of history (PR §324A). ¹²

Perpetual peace remains elusive because states are in a state of nature with each other despite the stipulations of international law (Mertens 1995, 676). At best, there can be “mediators,” what scholars today might call international institutions, but “even the presence of these will be contingent, i.e. determined by particular wills” (PR §333; Krombach 1991, 243). From this observation, Hegel argues the agreement presupposed by Kant’s federation of states, “whether based on moral, religious, or other grounds and considerations, would always be dependent on the particular sovereign wills, and would therefore continue to be tainted with contingency” (ibid.). ¹³ Even if states currently intend to establish a federation of states, there would be nothing to guarantee their intentions could not change in the future. ¹⁴ For Hegel, the contingency of peace based on contingent wills lacks the underlying necessity needed to count as actual (Krombach 1991, 244). Kant’s argument for perpetual peace, then, expresses more a hope for the future than something with a substantial basis in the here and now.

On the other hand, perpetual war is just as unreasonable to expect. States wage wars for the sake of settling conflicting rights, so, “even in wartime, the determination of war is that of something which ought to come to an end” (PR §338). Since states recognize they fight to settle disputes, they codify conditions for peace into international law: “War accordingly entails the determination of international law that it should preserve the possibility of peace – so that, for example, ambassadors should be respected and war should on no account be waged either on internal institutions and the peace of private and family life, or on private individuals” (ibid.). Here, Hegel agrees with Kant’s stipulation that “No state at war with another shall permit such acts of hostility as would make mutual confidence impossible during a future time of peace” (1991, 96). States own interests incentivize treaties limiting the scope of warfare by providing avenues for conflict resolution (Walt 1989, 116–17, 124; Brudner 2017, 338). Just as perpetual peace remains an impossibility because it lacks the underlying necessity needed to become actual, so too does perpetual war.

War and World History

Finally, Hegel examines war from the perspective of world history. This perspective constitutes the broadest possible view, for within it whole peoples appear as actors on the world stage (PR §340; Hegel 2004, 14). Hegel sees that “the ethical whole itself–the independence of the state– is exposed to contingency” in the turmoil of world history, such that “the universal spirit, the spirit of the world…and it is this spirit which exercises its right–which is the highest right of all–over finite spirits in world history as the world’s court of judgement” (PR §340). World history stands sufficiently above states to pronounce judgements on them.

From this perspective, four kinds of states appear, embodying Hegel’s four principles of world history. Of these, only the last three are really of interest for conceptualizing Hegel’s views on international politics since the first, that of the Asiatic state, lacks individuality (PR §353). Individuality, the precondition for relations among both private persons and states, only emerges in the Greek city-state. Thus, for the sake of judging the relations between states, the Greek, Roman, and Germanic periods are primarily of interest for Hegel.

Among the Greeks, Hegel sees war as the outward expression of internal freedom. In the Philosophy of History, Hegel identifies three periods in Greek history: “the first, that of the growth of real Individuality; the second, that of its independence and prosperity in external conquest (through contact with the previous World-historical people); and the third, the period of its decline and fall, in its encounter with the succeeding organ of World-History” (Hegel 2004, 224). Judith Shklar observes that “the happiness of Athens” in the Phenomenology “means that the people preserves its collective autonomy and individuality against other peoples” such that for Athens “war is not only an aspect of political life, it is the supreme expression of citizenship” (1976, 81). Greek freedom was such that it needed an external object toward which it could project its creative impulses. Tragically, however, the struggle for independence sets the Greek city-states at variance with one another, leading to their dissolution (Hegel 2004, 224).

In the Roman world, much the same process takes place. However, Hegel thinks subjective inwardness, not individuality as such, is the principle of the Roman world (2004, 281). Like the Greek world, Hegel divides the Roman world into three periods:

The first period comprehends the rudiments of Rome, in which the elements which are essentially opposed, still repose in calm unity; until the contrarieties have acquired strength… In this vigorous condition the State directs its forces outwards – i.e., in the second period… this is the noblest period of Rome–the Punic Wars… The Roman Empire now acquired that world-conquering extension which paved the way for its fall. Internal distraction supervened, while the antithesis was developing itself to self-contradiction and utter incompatibility; it closes with Despotism, which marks the third period (Hegel 2004, 281–82).

Both the Greeks and Romans, then, begin by developing their nascent internal principles into the fullness of their strength, subsequently project their energies outward through wars of imperial conquest, and finally fall through internal dissolution and overextension.

The history of the Germanic world takes a different course. ¹⁵ Whereas the “Greeks and the Romans had reached maturity within, ere they directed their energies outwards,” writes Hegel, “the Germans, on the contrary, began with self-diffusion–deluging the world, and overpowering in their course the inwardly rotten, hollow political fabrics of the civilized nations” (2004, 341). The Germanic peoples differ from the Greeks and Romans in that war is the infantile expression of their principle, not its mature form. Whereas the task of the Greeks was the realization of particular individuality and that of the Romans was the realization of abstract universality, the task of the Germanic peoples is the reconciliation of the two. Hegel describes the history of the Germanic world as “the exhibition of the growth of each of these principles severally, in Church and State; then of an antithesis on the part of both…since each them is itself a totality…; lastly, of the harmonizing of the antithesis” (2004, 343). Hence the role of the Germans in history is “the production of the religious principle which dwells in the heart of man, under the form of Secular Freedom” (2004, 335). Ultimately, the apotheosis of the state in Hegel’s philosophy serves to accomplish this reconciliation, since the abstract idea of God becomes concrete in it.

Since this dialectical process encompasses Hegel’s own historical moment, the role of war in the Germanic epoch deserves special attention. Two major changes to warfare occur in the Germanic world: first, the development of balance of power politics, which mitigates the effects of anarchy by teaching states that even as they stand apart, they share common interests; and second, the invention of the gun, which decreases the importance of personal courage in modern warfare by reducing armies to masses representing political totalities. Because of these developments, Hegel thinks modern warfare is becoming increasingly rational.

Optimistic interpretations of Hegel tend to focus on these passages. For Avineri, Hegel “emerges with a vision of One World, united by culture and reason, progressing towards a system wherein sovereignty, though acknowledged, will wither away, and wars, though immanent, will gradually disappear” (1972, 207). Similarly, Smith thinks “the growing rationalization or Westernization of humanity” in Hegel’s interpretation of world history “will mean the elimination of the grounds of war” (1989, 164). If their interpretation is correct, Hegel foreshadows current narratives about the withering away of war in history (e.g., Goldstein 2011; Pinker 2011). One might think Hegel’s claim that world history stands as the world’s court of judgment supports this interpretation. To evaluate it, however, we must examine in greater detail the developments Hegel envisions.

First, Hegel identifies the development of balance of power politics with the Germanic world. He locates this development at the end of the second period of German history. At this time, Hegel says, “A diplomatic policy arises, which in the interest of a European balance of power, unites [the European states] with and against each other” (2004, 345). This policy becomes more established as history progresses and the wars of earlier periods provide a common education for European states. Tracing this history:

We observe also an essential feature now first presenting itself in the political aspect of the time, a connected system of States and a relation of States to each other. They became involved in various wars… From these wars between the various political powers there arose common interests, and the object of that community of interest was the maintenance of severality – the preservation of the several States of their independence – in fact the “balance of power” (2004, 430–31).

The threat of aggression by the hands of an ascendant European power led the various European states to band together for their preservation against rising powers. Although not united under a higher power, the European states came to recognize their common interest as states in preserving their independence. They also shared an interest in banding together against external threats such as “that sustained to the Turks” (2004, 432–33). Thus, the German world produces the balance of power within Europe as well as a balance of European states against an external other.

This idea reappears in the Philosophy of Right. There, Hegel remarks, “The European nations form a family with respect to the universal principle of their legislation, customs, and culture, so that their conduct in terms of international law is modified accordingly in a situation which is otherwise dominated by the mutual infliction of evils” (PR §339A). The European states, however, do not necessarily share such common interests with non-European states. After discussing the so-called right of heroes to establish states, Hegel says, “The same determination entitles civilized nations to regard and treat as barbarians other nations which are less advanced than they are in the substantial moments of the state…in the consciousness that the rights of these other nations are not equal to theirs and that their independence is merely formal” (PR §351). While the conduct of war among European states is bound by certain agreed upon interests and norms, Hegel thinks conflicts between European and non-European peoples occur purely in a state of nature. Although it is unclear whether Hegel acknowledges limits on what European states may do to non-European states, the development of the “family” of European states in modern history provides grounds for thinking war can become more humane over time.

Second, Hegel thinks that the invention of the gun makes modern warfare increasingly rational. Hegel does not think people should lament the fact that in modern wars a coward hiding in the forest with a gun can shoot down a hero making a valiant charge on the field. Instead, “gunpowder has made a rational, considerate bravery – Spiritual valor – the essential to martial success” (Hegel 2004, 402). This valor is spiritual because it is more abstract and impersonal than the old variety. Ultimately, “The true valor of civilized nations is their readiness for sacrifice in the service of the state, so that the individual merely counts as one among many. Not personal courage, but integration with the universal is the important factor here” (PR §328A).

Although Hegel sees modernity transforming warfare, one should not interpret this narrative optimistically. The trajectory of the modern world displays more a purification of the concept of enmity than the elimination of war. Hegel writes, “The principle of the modern world–thought and the universal–has given a higher form to valor, in that its expression seems to be more mechanical and not so much the deed of a particular person as that of a member of a whole. It likewise appears to be directed not against individual persons, but against a hostile whole in general” (PR §328). As warfare progresses, non-warlike elements in it such as motives of revenge disappear. Whereas Achilles could rage against Hector outside the walls of Troy after the death of Patroclus, modern soldiers must confront one another as mere members of totalities, in which personal motives play almost no role. For modern soldiers, “the heat of personal feeling has no share; for the discharge of firearms is directed against a body of men—an abstract enemy, not individual combatants” (Hegel 2004, 402). Thus, modernity makes it clear the enemy is “not the private adversary whom one hates” (Schmitt 2007, 28). The drama of Hegel’s history, then, does not disclose the sort of story in which those who “are the deadliest enemies—like Orestes and Aegisthus—quit the stage as friends at the close, and no one slays or is slain,” as in Aristotle’s description of comedy (1961, 1453a3-36). Instead, the retrospective glance of history reveals a tragic world wherein there remains “the real possibility of physical killing.”

What does this mean for us today? Arguably, drones mark the latest stage in the depersonalization of war Hegel identified. If the gun marked an extension of the bow’s capacity to kill at a distance and the plane an extension of the gun’s, then the drone extends the capacity of the plane, whose range was always limited by the pilot’s need for sustenance, sleep, and exercise. As Samuel Moyn has documented, the Bush, Obama, and Trump administrations drastically expanded drone use to wage evermore “humane” wars over ever-increasing distances, eroding long-held norms in the process (2021, 233–312; similarly, Banka and Adam 2018). Although one could interpret this optimistically, IR scholars have found “the use of drones shields the public from the consequences and costs of war, which prevents the public backlash that restrains leaders from conducting wars” (Kaag and Kreps 2014, 16). Drones have been most important in U.S. efforts against non-state actors, though their importance for inter-state conflicts is increasing (Lyall 2020). They featured prominently in Nagorno-Karabakh War between Armenia and Azerbaijan (Shaikh and Rumbaugh 2020) and have been crucial in the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian war (Marcus 2022). Though these conflicts indicate drones work best in tandem with human forces (Calcara et al. 2022), the vision of war without casualties looms on the horizon.

Yet, from a Hegelian perspective, war without sacrifice seems a dubious moral victory, for it would signal the triumph of the riskless private sphere over the deadly seriousness of ethical life. Hegel says “the higher significance of war is that, through its agency (as I have put it on another occasion), ‘the ethical health of nations is preserved…just as the movement of the winds preserves the sea from that stagnation which a lasting calm would produce—a stagnation which a lasting, not to say perpetual, peace would also produce among nations’” (PR §324, citing Hegel 1975, 93). In this regard, Schmitt and Hegel concur in their affirmations of the political against Kant’s internationalist imperative. Schmitt laments that if “human groupings on earth should be so unified that a conflict among them is impossible…then the distinction between friend and enemy would also cease. What remains is neither politics nor state, but culture, civilization, economics, morality, law, art, entertainment, etc.” (2007, 53; emphasis mine). As Leo Strauss perceived, the final word shows Schmitt “affirms the political because he sees in the threatened status of the political a threat to the seriousness of human life” (Strauss 2007, 117). Perhaps this moral seriousness remains submerged beneath the scientific surface of contemporary American realism, which, after all, was born in confrontation with the German tradition (Specter 2022; Guilhot 2017).

Conclusion and Implications

We have seen Hegel writes about war from three different perspectives, none of which alone is adequate. Internally, war protects ethical life from encroachments by civil society by reminding citizens of their unity with the state and has its proper place in the estate of valor. Although Hegel denies war is good in itself, he acknowledges it produces certain goods as a byproduct. This acknowledgment attracted dangerous minds such as Schmitt, who wielded these goods against liberal optimists hoping for the supersession of enmity. Despite such appropriations, Hegel himself sees war as an evil which, in abstract, ought to end. Nevertheless, in the international system, this ought-to-be lacks actuality because of the absence of a “praetor” in the international system. In the absence of a concrete power over them, war serves as the institution whereby states determine who must give way when a tragic conflict of rights occurs. World-historically, war appears as the mature expression of Greek and Roman freedom, but the infantile expression of Germanic freedom. It evolves over time as the Germanic world introduces balance of power politics and the gun. Although some see grounds for optimism in these transformations, I have argued Hegel’s depiction of modern history reveals the purification of enmity rather than its eclipse. As Hegel’s contemporary Carl von Clausewitz observed, “the fact that slaughter is a horrifying spectacle must make us take war more seriously” (1989, 260). Counterintuitively, the depersonalization of war may do more to diffuse than defuse war’s explosive potential.

Nonetheless, if the history of social theory evinces an unconscious “suppression of war,” as Joas and Knöbl have argued (2012), wherein wars lead to theoretical innovations that are then discarded when conflict subsides, the pattern will likely repeat in the Russo-Ukrainian War. Many commentators already see it as a struggle over war’s future as a foreign policy instrument, with a decisive Russian defeat signaling war’s unacceptability in contemporary world politics (e.g., Kagan 2023; Snyder 2022). With the war over, the norm against aggression will again appear well-founded, and war in Europe can become “unthinkable” once more.

By contrast, Hegel’s political philosophy foregrounds the risks of war’s recurrence and reasons why perpetual peace remains elusive. Chief among these is the contingency—necessarily revealing itself over time—of the will, which thereby limits the permanence of voluntary agreements between states. Given Hegel’s tragic conception of war, a Hegelian reading of events would see in them two sets of equally legitimate but conflicting rights. Just as Ukraine has every right to preserve its independence, so too, for Hegel, does Russia have every right to forestall an adverse shift in its power relative to Ukraine. Precisely because both rights are genuine, “a third thing, i.e. war, must make them unequal” (Hegel 1964, 210). Although itself horrible, the rose in the cross of the present, as Hegel might put it, is that Russia’s invasion has inadvertently awakened Ukraine’s political self-consciousness. Much as Europe’s common identity formed in opposition to the Ottoman Empire (Hegel 2004, 432–33), so too has Russian expansion transformed what it means to be Ukrainian. Since the war began in 2014, Ukraine’s government has razed several thousand Soviet or Russian monuments and renamed about 50,000 streets and another 1000 towns (Kasianov 2022). Although most Ukrainians are conversant in Russian, and a third identify it as their mother tongue, this has begun to change, with many who cannot speak Ukrainian now learning. As one formerly Russian-speaking Ukrainian recently put it, “It is a question of our existence.” ¹⁶