1

THE NOMOS OF THE EARTH: MILITARISATION OF THE PARADIGM OR

MILITARY AS PARADIGM*

Ms. Zeynep ARIKANLI

Research and Teaching Assistant, the Department of International Relations, Galatasaray

University, Istanbul/ TURKEY

Co-Author: Mrs. Beril DEDEOĞLU

Professor, Head of the Department of International Relations, Galatasaray University, Istanbul/

TURKEY

Paper prepared for presentation at the IPSA XXII World Congress, ‘Changing Role of Military

in the 21st Century,’ (Panel Code: RC 44.034), Madrid 8‐12 July 2012

* This paper is a part of the project which is entitled as “New World Order and Paradigm: Question of Security

under the Light of Conceptual Debates” and led by Ms. Zeynep Arıkanlı and Ms. Menent Savaş, under the

supervision of Mrs. Beril Dedeoğlu . This three-years project is financed by the Committee for Scientific Researches

of Galatasaray University. The authors thank to the Committee for Scientific Researches of Galatasaray University

for its contributions.

2

To Peter Higgs and all CERN staff

INTRODUCTION

Seagulls of Galatasaray University are like clandestine transnational actors (CTAs): they operate

across all frontiers - that they often violate to steal the food. It’s hardly possible to seat at a bench

with a sandwich, it’s not safe at all: you have to be attentive to “seagull(y)” threats targeting your

food. You are oftenly hopeless against this enemy and can rarely win the war; but somehow you

do have some chances. When it came to face this enemy, I had three choices: to run, fight or

cooperate. We were both hungry and needed that food. I owned the vital resource and (s)he

wanted to get it at any cost. Although I was seemingly superior, (s)he had nothing to lose. I’d

opted for the third option and, I ended up with sharing my sandwich: neither of us had the entire

portion as (s)he had wished to, but we didn’t fight and eventually each of us got a satisfactory

part. It was a fair action and less costly strategy. That may sound freakish to you, but

transformation of actors, as well as their behavior are slightly more complicated than this daily

life struggle at their very deep (essence).

Now, let’s go back to our academic world:

As the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s (NATO) strategies have been evolving

within a renewed and broader framework of principles known as “new concepts,” the role of

military in democratization processes needs to be reevaluated. Accordingly, this paper aims at re-

theorizing and tracing the role of military on democratization through questioning whether this

role consists of the emergence of a new world order’s principle, i.e. the nomos of the earth1,

through the analysis of NATO’s enlargement process. Not only military interventions of the last

two decades (from Afghanistan to Somalia), but also this enlargement, offer a proper ground to

study the transformation of world order's paradigm: such transformation stands at the

intersection point of military and democracy. In this sense, this paper will argue that the nomos

of the world consists of the conflation of these seemingly contradictory concepts. More

precisely, state system remaining the realm of this order, thus its preservation being the main

objective, these interventions aim not to make changes of physical frontiers, but to ensure the

security within these frontiers, to secure the regime change and to realign (normative) secure

lines within these frontiers accordingly to the nomos. Nomos makes sense in a broader

framework which is the transformation of NATO. Is it globalization of military power? Or is

NATO adapting itself not only to the changing environment, but also to the changing principles

of international order? We’ll argue that whilst NATO expands its strategic geography, it adopts a

more normative approach giving way to democratic and peaceful change, democratic

governance, human rights, and the rule of international law in its agenda. Given the broadness of

the topic, the theoretical framework is limited to a combined one, i.e. Carl Schmitt’s and

1 See Carl Schmitt, The Nomos of the Earth in International Law of the Jus Publicum Europaeum, New York:

Teloss Press Publishing, 2006. In this paper we’ll refer to the French translation of Schmitt’s book. See, Carl

Schmitt, Le Nomos de la Terre dans le Droit des Gens du Jus Publicum Europeaum, translated by Lilyane Deroche-

Gurcel, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, January, 2001.

3

Friedrich Kratochwil’s approaches to analyze the international order, and the emergence of rules,

norms, and principles of (and within) this order. Within this framework, the main emphasis will

be on the NATO’s transformation, through an analysis of its new strategic concept. Abundant in

quotations, this paper might be seen as “linguistic turn-inspired reading of world politics”2 and

it’s based on an intertextual reading (from theoretical and conceptual works to official

documents) in order to find out the mental framework of NATO’s enlargement and its ongoing

transformation.

Andrew Kydd points out that “the enlargement of NATO is not only one of the most

important developments in international affairs after the Cold War, but it is also one of the most

puzzling.”3 According to Kydd, “many factors were at work in producing NATO enlargement,

from domestic political issues, such as the existence of electorally significant East European

émigré communities in the United States, to the personal rapport between U.S. president Bill

Clinton and Czech President Vaclav Havel.”4 Although “certain aspects of the enlargement

process seem difficult to explain with conventional theories of alliance formation,” both NATO’s

enlargement and the changing military’s role in the 21st century follow a traceable pattern, that of

the new nomos5 of the earth. In this paper, we’ll argue that the nomos of earth is security; this is

what explains the growing emphasis on military’s role in democratization. In a broader sense,

NATO’s enlargement, or, its transformation, might be seen as the globalization of military power

and this globalization might be re-theorized through the concept of militarization of paradigm or

military as paradigm.

I. NOMOS OF THE EARTH AND EVOLUTION OF NORMS

Carl Schmitt’s Nomos of the Earth might be considered as “legal genealogy of the territorial

spatial ordering of the earth, particularly as it relates to war.”6 Accordingly, the nomos shall be

defined as the founding principle of world spatial order which defines the contours of

international relations (i.e. between European states). In this sense, Schmitt’s nomos refers to

“hegemonic public European legal balance that mediated relations between sovereign European

states.”7 As Melinda Cooper points out, Schmitt’s work asserts the primacy of sovereign power

in the modern state. “Schmitt locates the crux of power,” notes Cooper, “in the act of sovereign

decision, with its right to determine when and if the protection of law should be maintained or

suspended.”8 According to Schmitt, the true scope of sovereign power can be defined only in

negative terms. This is why he could see in the League of Nations (that he often preferred to call

as “Geneva’s League”) and in its Mandate System, only a latent imperialism which had given

path to the Allies to impose their rule under the name of “sacred trust of civilization.” In

Schmitt’s thought, this negative perception of sovereign power results from schmittian nexus of

concepts such as sovereignty, imperialism and world order. From this perspective, one might

2 Mathias Albert, Oliver Kessler and Stephan Stetter, “On Order and Conflict: International Relations the

‘Communicative Turn’,” 3 Andrew Kydd, “Trust Building, Trust Breaking: The Dilemma of NATO Enlargement,” International

Organization, Vol. 55, No. 4, The Rational Design of International Institutions (Autumn, 2001), p. 803. 4 Ibid., p. 804.

5 The founding principle of world order, managing principally relations between sovereign states.

6 “Nomos of the Earth,” URL: http://territorialmasquerades.net/nomos-of-the-earth.

7 Ibid.

8 Melinda Cooper, “Insecure Time Tough Decisions: The Nomos of Neoliberalism,” Alternatives: Global, Political,

Local, Vol. 29, No. 5, Governing Society today (November-December, 2004), p. 515.

4

read Javier Solana’s “Only Winners’ in New Security Structure”9 as the affirmation of “more

powerful’s rule.” Furthermore, the enlargement of NATO, given the growing emphasis on

international terrorism, might be formulated in Agamben’s saying: “The police now become

politics, and the care of life coincides with the fight against the enemy.”10

Although this thought provides us an intelligible ground for the understanding of

NATO’s transformation, it does not allow to explicit the evolution of international norms and,

therefore, lets the normative aspect of NATO’s transformation obscure. Ann Florini’s questions

might be helpful: “Why, of the variety of norms available at any given time to govern behavior

in particular choice situations, does one rather than other become a widely accepted standard of

behavior? […] Is the predominance of specific norms based merely on historically conjunctural

idiosyncrasies, or are there definite patterns that allow us to explain the changing role of any

particular norm?”11

II. “THE RESORT TO NORMS”12

AND PARADIGM

Actors tend to find the meaning not only of their actions, but also of their existence itself; in

other saying, they seek for their raison d’être. Therefore, they create mental frameworks13

of

their actions, that we prefer to call sense-making process. This sense might be difficult to be

made when an organization has a strictly limited objective once the conditions have radically

changed. For example, explaining the United Nations’ (UN) evolution is an easy task, given the

UN system is, by definition, based on the purpose of ensuring a sustainable peace among the

nations of the world: “The United Nations system consists of various entities with diverse

mandates and governing structures that aim to engender principles such as global governance,

consensus building, peace and security, justice and international law, non-discrimination and

gender equity, sustained socio-economic development, sustainable development, fair trade,

humanitarian action and crime prevention. Above all, the UN system is collectively committed to

furthering the Millennium Declaration.”14

When it comes to a military organization, i.e. NATO,

founded exclusively to provide secure lines to the Western Block of the Cold War, the analysis

might become complicated. NATO had been founded in a period when border control had long

and still been a core state activity15

and “states had always imposed entry barriers, whether to

deter armies, tax trade and protect domestic producers, or keep up perceived ‘undesirables’.”16

9 See infra., p. 6.

10 Giorgio Agamben, Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life, translated by Daniel Heller Roazen, Standford:

Standford University Press, 1998, p. 147. See also Claudia Minca, “Giorgio Agamben and the New Biopolitical

Nomos,” Geografiska Annaler. Series B, Human Geography, Vol. 88, No. 4 (2006), pp. 387-403. 11

Ann Florini, “The Evolution of International Norms,” International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 40, No. 3, Special

Issue: Evolutionary Paradigms in the Social Sciences (September, 1996), p. 363. 12

Cf. Friedrich V. Kratochwil, Rules, Norms, and Decisions. On the Conditions of Practical and Legal Reasoning in

International Relations and Domestic Affairs, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. 13

See infra, p. 4. 14

United Nations Evaluation Group (UNEG), “Norms of Evaluation in the UN System. Towards a UN system better

serving the peoples of the world; overcoming weaknesses and building on strengths from a strong evidence base” April, 29, 2005. URL: http://www.cepal.org/dppo/noticias/paginas/4/37534/NormsForEvaluationinTheUNSystem.pdf. 15

Malcolm Anderson, Frontiers: Territory and State Formation in the Modern World, Cambridge: Polity, 1996

quoted in Peter Andreas, “Redrawing the Line: Borders and Security in the Twenty-First Century,” International

Security, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Autumn, 2003), p. 78. 16

Ibid.

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Where does NATO fit in a world where the importance of territoriality is persisting, but with a

shift in emphasis? What is the true nature of this shift (in our study, the transformation of

NATO)? Does it mean a paradigm shift?

In his Rules, Norms and Decisions, Friedrich Kratochwil asks how we understand human

action, and what role norms play in this process.17

Enlarging the scope leads us to ask how we

understand collective action and what role norms play in this process. Kratochwil follows

reasoning through an investigation of three world-images: the world of observational facts, the

world of mental facts, and, the world of institutional facts. As Kratochwil argues, the world of

mental facts (i.e. that of intention and meaning) “is no one of measurement but rather one in

which the reconstruction of the parameters of action is at issue.”18

This is what makes an actor’s

choice and intentions and motives can be understood. Nevertheless, the understanding of an

actor’s intentions and motives does not help to capture the essential features of an action. Here

we enter to the world of institutional facts which might be defined as the frameworks of action.

This framework might be constraining or regulative one (or, sometimes, both) and bound the

action, e.g. the UN Charter. As Kratochwil suggests, “insofar as the system is based on alliances

and strategic calculations, the [actions] can be conceptualized even more within the framework

of a game rather than within that of observational facts.”19

That is to say that, if the charters, the

resolutions, the declarations, etc. might be gathered under two concepts such as promising and

contracting, and given that these two are part of the game, the framework of institutional facts

provides a more appropriate framework (of understanding). In other words, observational facts

such as military interventions of the 21st century or NATO’s enlargement can be understood

within the institutional framework constituted of regulative and/ or constraining rules. We

suggest that institutional facts are observational facts too, and, above-mentioned three worlds

cannot be dissociated one from the other and have both to be conceptualized and concretized

together (and at the same time). This seemingly complicated task leads us to think on facts and

norms in interaction. More precisely (and maybe in its simplest saying) facts determine norms

and vice versa. For example, NATO’s enlargement is both an observational and institutional fact

and the nature of this enlargement might be understood within the framework of mental facts20

(i.e. norms and principles of which the outcomes are rules). As Frank Schimmelfennig argues,

“in the constructivist perspective, the enlargement of an international organization is primarily

conceived of as a process of international socialization.”21

Accordingly, international

organizations engage in socialization when they teach their set of constitutive norms and rules

values to aspiring new members of the community.22

“New members are graded on how well

they have internalized the norms and values and are admitted when they have proven that they

have sincerely adopted the new identity. NATO is best understood as an “organization of an

international community of values and norms;” primarily democracy, liberty and the rule of

law.”23

Here’s the beginning of the problems: if democracy, liberty and the rule of law constitute

17

Kratochwil, op.cit., p. 21. 18

Ibid., p. 23. 19

Ibid., p. 28. 20

In order to make our presentation clearer and more specific, we prefer to gather some basic concepts and terms

(e.g. norms, principles, rules, etc.) under a more general framework which is that of mental facts. 21

Frank Schimmelfennig, “NATO Enlargement: A Constructivist Approach,” Security Studies, Vol. 8, Issue 2-3.

Special Issue: The Origins of National Interests (1998), p. 211. 22

Kydd, op.cit., p. 805. 23

Schimmelfennig, op.cit., p. 213-214, quoted in ibid.

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supreme value, how come that our worlds of meaning and facts are stamped more and more by

security and military paradigms? Is Homo Homini Lupus still a relevant motto? One might argue

that both observational facts (e.g. military interventions) and institutional facts (e.g. NATO’s

enlargement) affirm that. Consequently, one can observe the paradigm shift, the very essence

(i.e. prevailing of security paradigm) remaining the same. A brief look at the “mental” (i.e.

intention and meaning, namely, sense-making) bases of military interventions of the 21st century

might be explicative.

Norms, ideas, principles, etc. are fuzzy and imprecise concepts. In this sense, to

determine to what extent such fuzzy and imprecise things affect the behavior of states might be a

difficult task. The problem is that, in spite of growing emphasis on human and ethic values,

security concerns prevail often these values; they might be even instrumentalized to justify a

military action. For example, human security is one of the principal mental components of the

21st military interventions. Yet, and in spite of this central role in these interventions, its

definition remains blur and vague. Roland Paris points out that “human security is the latest in a

long line of neologisms – including common security, global security, cooperative security, and

comprehensive security – that encourage policymakers and scholars to think about international

security as something more than military defense of state interests and territory.”24

Does human

security represent a new paradigm, especially given the gradual demilitarization and economic

liberalization of borders in a global age? To what extent?

NATO’s New Strategic Concept, that we consider as an action of realigning the world

offers a proper ground to furnish relevant answers.

III. REALIGNING THE WORLD: NATO AND ITS NEW STRATEGIC CONCEPT

“At their Summit in Strasbourg on 3 and 4 April 2009, NATO’s Heads of State and

Government tasked the Secretary General to develop a new NATO Strategic Concept.”25

The

need for a new strategic concept26

is explained as follows:

“A sound transatlantic consensus on NATO’s roles and missions and on its strategy to deal with

security challenges is essential if NATO is to function optimally. The Strategic Concept is the

core NATO document that establishes and reflects this transatlantic consensus. Clearly, as the

security environment that NATO has to deal with changes, so the Alliance’s Strategic Concept

has to be periodically updated. The current Concept dates from 1999, a time when NATO had 19

members compared to the 28 it has today and when NATO’s focus was very much on challenges

within Europe or on Europe’s periphery.

Clearly the new Strategic Concept, which must be elaborated and approved by all 28 current

Allies, has to take account not only of the way in which security challenges have evolved, such as

24

Roland Paris, “Human Security: Paradigm Shift or Hot Air?” International Security, Vol. 26, No. 2 (Autumn,

2001), p. 87. 25

“NATO’s New Strategic Concept – Why? How?” NATO’s Official Texts, URL: http://www.nato.int/strategic-

concept/what-is-strategic-concept.html. 26

“The strategic concept is an official document that outlines NATO’s enduring purpose and nature and its

fundamental security tasks. It also identifies the central features of the new security environment, specifies the

elements of the Alliance’s approach to security and provides the guidelines for adaptation of its military forces.” See

“Strategic Concepts.” URL: http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/topics_56626.htm.

7

the new emphasis on proliferation, failed states, piracy, energy supplies, terrorism and climate

change, but also of how NATO has adapted and transformed in the last decade to be able to better

tackle these challenges. The new Strategic Concept will therefore not be only an analytical

document. It will need also to give specific guidance to NATO governments on how they need to

further transform the Alliance and their own national defence [sic.] structures and capabilities to

be successful in meeting NATO’s core tasks in the 21st century. The Strategic Concept must also

give public opinion in the Alliance countries and beyond a clear sense of why NATO still matters

and how in many ways it is helping to make them more secure.”27

Intended to be an inclusive one, the new Strategic Concept has been ought to include all

its members, in a manner that this concept would be consulted. The outcome was the publishing

of the Strategic Concept at the Lisbon Summit in November 2010. In its official saying, the

document underlines a transformed security environment and, accordingly, a transformed

Alliance: “New and emerging security threats, especially since the 9/11 terrorist attacks,

NATO’s crisis management experience in the Balkans and Afghanistan, and the value and

importance of working with partners from across the globe, all drove NATO to reassess and

review its strategic posture.”28

These concerns and strategic renewal are formulated in the 2010

statement as “Active Engagement, Modern Defence [sic.]”29

The document describes NATO as a

“unique community of values committed to the principles of individual liberty, democracy,

human rights and the rule of law.”30

Accordingly; it assigns three principal tasks such as

collective defense, crisis management and cooperative security and underlines Alliance

solidarity, the importance of transatlantic consultation and the need the need to engage in a

continuous process of reform.31

To this end, the Strategic Concept states that whilst the Allies are

“determined that NATO will continue to play its unique and essential role in ensuring [their]

common defence [sic.] and security.” The new input is that the statement which put forward the

objective of guiding the next phase of in NATO’s evolution in order to be effective in a changing

world, against the new threats, with new capabilities and new partners.

In a collective action, actors are to do with not a unique homogenous environment, but

heterogeneous ones and these environments are stamped by a multiplicity of fragmentations and

are to change and/ or transform constantly. As Michel Crozier and Erhard Friedberg point out,

changes in environments urge new modalities of action that would permit to respond to the

necessities of new conditions32

. All measures and actions to take, namely, actions aiming at

adapting to these heterogeneous environments, take place and make sense only in a broader

framework called as strategies of change. The question is whether NATO’s enlargement and

actions fit or not within this framework.

27

“NATO’s New Strategic Concept – Why? How?” 28

“The current strategic concept,” NATO Official Texts, URL:

http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/topics_56626.htm. 29

“Active Engagement, Modern Defence. Strategic Concept for the Defence and security of the Members of the

North Atlantic Treaty Organisation adopted by Heads of State and Government in Lisbon,” NATO Official Texts.

URL: http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_68580.htm (“Active Engagement, Modern Defence”). 30

“The current strategic concept.” 31

“Active Engagement, Modern Defence.” 32

Michel Crozier et Erhard Friedberg, L’Acteur et le Système. Les contraintes de l’action collective, Paris: Éditions

Seuil, 1977, p. 36.

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IV. THE NOMOS OF THE 21st CENTURY: DOES ENLARGEMENT MEAN A NEW

NATO?

In a talk that he gave at Chatham House, Javier Solana33

, referring to decisions that would be

taken at the July Summit of 199734

, had emphasized that it would not necessarily imply a new

NATO. “At the July Summit,” he’d said, “you can expect a series of decisions, all with far-

reaching implications for European security as a whole. In terms of NATO’s organization, it will

not mark the beginning of a new NATO.”35

That would not mean, however, that the Alliance had

and would not transform:

“But it will bring together all together all of the structures and organizational initiatives

that have transformed the North Atlantic Alliance in recent years. […] The collective

defence [sic.] of Alliance territory remains at the heart of NATO, but the Alliance is no

longer organized solely and exclusively for that.”36

The process from Solana’s speech and Madrid Declaration of July 1997 up to the Lisbon

Summit of 2010 firmly affirmed the development of “a new NATO for a new and undivided

Europe.”37

Accordingly, NATO’s New Strategic Concept defines the Alliance’s “fundamental

and enduring purpose” as “to safeguard of all its members by political and military means”38

, the

Alliance remaining “as an essential source of stability in an unpredictable world.”39

Central to

core tasks and principles is the emphasis on universal values: “NATO member states form a

unique community of values, committed to the principles of individual liberty, democracy,

human rights and the rule of law. The Alliance is firmly committed to the purposes and

principles of the Charter of the United Nations, and to the Washington Treaty,40

which affirms

the primary responsibility of the Security Council for the maintenance of international peace and

security.”41

Yet, the preface maintains that “the citizens of our countries rely on NATO to defend

Allied nations, to deploy robust military forces where and when required for our security and to

help promote common security with our partners around the globe,” and continues as follows:

“While the world is changing, NATO’s essential mission will remain the same: to ensure that the

Alliance remains an unparalleled community of freedom, peace, security and shared values.”42

Frugal with defining precisely these shared values, the New Strategic Concept’s main

emphasis is on “modern security environment” which, according to the document, is

33

Secretary General of NATO from 1995 to 1999. 34

NATO Summit held at Madrid, 8-9 July 1997. Summit gathered North Atlantic Council (NAC) at the level of the

Heads of State and Government and Meeting of Allied and Partner Heads of State and/or Government under the

aegis of the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC). See NATO’s documents on the topic at:

http://www.nato.int/docu/comm/1997/970708/home.htm. 35

Javier Solana, “’Only Winners’ in New Security Structure,” The World Today, Vol. 53, No. 4 (April, 1997), p.

103 (printed version of a talk that Solana gave at Chatham House). 36

Ibid. 37

“Madrid Declaration on Euro-Atlantic Security and Cooperation,” 8, July, 1997. URL:

http://www.nato.int/docu/pr/1997/p97-081e.htm. 38

“Active Engagement, Modern Defence.” 39

Ibid. 40

See Article 5 of the Washington Treaty on http://www.nato.int/terrorism/five.htm. 41

“Active Engagement, Modern Defence.” 42

Ibid.

9

unpredictable and “contains a broad and evolving set of challenges to the security of NATO’s

territory and populations.” The broadness of challenges provides a proper basis to NATO to

expand its territory of action. In this sense, transformation of NATO, or, in a broader saying,

paradigm shift does not seem a reliable argument. Accordingly, “the NATO did not

fundamentally change its mandate after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact and the collapse of

the Soviet Union.”43

The ongoing enlargement of the NATO has continued and the Alliance has

expanded into Eastern Europe and the NATO seems to be determined to expand its membership

circle and to expand its mandate. This continuity is grounded on both the NATO’s ability to

adapt itself to the new conditions and, to put forth security as a paradigm of domination. More

precisely, NATO could be able to redefine Not surprisingly, military interventions have become

the main tools of democratization.

Into what does NATO transform then? We argue that it’s a strategy of change aiming at

surviving. This has a double meaning: first, that proves the ability of the Alliance to adapt to the

changes; second, the current international system offers a proper ground for not only the survival

of a military alliance, but also the strengthening of this organization. That leads us to the nomos

of the earth: security remains the basic principle managing international relations and

determining actors’ behavior (mental fact); military is the concretization of this principle

(observational fact) and NATO’s transformation constitutes the institutional framework of the

nomos. Given nomos is basically related to territory, we suggest furthering our analysis by

establishing link between the question of territoriality and NATO’s transformation: we claim that

NATO’s enlargement implies an expansion both territorial and normative.44

Namely, NATO

both enlarges its territory of mandate and that of norms and rules (therefore, that of meaning of

action45

) which would prevail.

Let’s go back to Carl Schmitt to clarify this seemingly complicated argument:

“In his 1932 work The Concept of the Political,” notes Melinda Cooper, “Schmitt draws

out the consequences of his theory of the sovereign in relation to the legal conditions of war.”46

According to Schmitt, the difference between friend and enemy lies in the distinction between

the state of lawfulness and the state of exception. In his 1950 work The Nomos of the Earth, Carl

Schmitt “situates the invention of the European nation-state within the larger context of

European imperialism. […] [He] reads the legislative history of the European nation-state in

parallel with the invasion of the so-called New World and the first apprehension of Earth as

‘global order’.”47

Schmitt suggests that the political categories of modern institutional laws are

incomprehensible without an understanding of the spatial divisions of planet Earth that were

established along with the imperial conquest of the New World.48

The age of empires (even that

of nation-states) having come to its end, spatial divisions have been substituted by lines, and

these lines have been redefined and redrawn on the basis of security. “Issues of security are no

43

Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, “The Globalization of Military Power: NATO Expansion and the broader network of

US sponsored military alliances,” Global Research, (May, 18, 2007). URL:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=5677. 44

See supra, p. 6. 45

See supra, p. 3. 46

Cooper, op.cit., p. 522. 47

Ibid. 48

Cf. Schmitt, op.cit. p. 29, quoted in ibid.

10

longer primarily framed in terms of threats posed by identifiable, conventional enemy. Instead,

[…] security policies have emphasized the global and radically uncertain nature of threats such

as environmental degradation, terrorism and financial risks.” Carl Schmitt defined Jus Publicum

Europaeum (JPE) as hegemonic European legal balance between sovereign European states and

saw it as Eurocentric global law. According to Schmitt, “the balance of power and the status quo

[was] ultimately what is at stake”49

. He saw Europe as a unique case in which the fate of each

had severe consequences for the fate of all and defended that this tenuous balance was needed to

preserved at all costs. In the eyes of Carl Schmitt, “the pervasive commonality of the spatial

order [was] more important than usually associated with sovereignty and non-intervention”50

and

the enemy who [threatened] this nomos [was] an unjust enemy. “An unjust enemy, who [could]

be insurgents, criminals, and pirates, [were] actually threats to the constitutive link between

nomos and law”51

and singular achievement of the JPE was not elimination of war, but it’s

bracketing.52

You’re right if this sounds quite familiar, even current: let me remind you just the

third and forth articles of NATO’s Active Engagement, Modern Defence:

“The political and military bonds between Europe and North America have been forged in NATO

since the Alliance was founded in 1949; the transatlantic link remains as strong and as important

to the preservation of Euro-Atlantic peace and security as ever. The security of NATO members

on both sides of the Atlantic is indivisible. We will continue to defend it together, on the basis of

solidarity, shared purpose and fair burden-sharing.”53

Putting forth that “the modern security environment contains a broad and evolving set of

challenges to the security of NATO’s territory and populations” within the “boundaries” of such

an indivisible territory, this renewed strategy concept defines as mandate territory an even larger

territory of defence and, therefore, that of intervention.

CONCLUSION

…. AND IN THE SECURITY BIND THEM: SECURITY AND MILITARISATION OF

PARADIGM: TOWARD A NEW LEVIATHAN?

In this paper we’ve tried to identify the nomos of the earth through NATO’s enlargement and

new strategy concept by exploring a wide range of readings going from Carl Schmitt’s works to

those of Friedrich Kratochwil.

Ann Florini argues that “international change even in security field is becoming far more

a question of competing ideas, not competing military organization.”54

Nevertheless, the fact that

“NATO is determined to expand its membership circle and expand its mandate”55

does not make

NATO a more humanistic international organization; rather, it helps the Alliance to strengthen its

49

See supra, p. 2, footnote no. 5. 50

Schmitt, op.cit., p. 189. 51

Ibid., p. 169. 52

Ibid., p. 187. 53

“Active Engagement, Modern Defence.” 54

Florini, op.cit., p. 387. 55

Nazemroaya, op.cit.

11

position in international politics and makes it a powerful actor. The emphasis on human values,

or, more precisely, human security, provides a fruitful ground to explore and helps to hold

together the Alliance’s member. As a unifying concept for the Alliance, “human security is

powerful precisely because it lacks precision and thereby encompasses the diverse perspectives

and objectives of all the members.”56

In this sense, NATO enlargement, as well as its ongoing

transformation process is “mentally” based on mobilizing uncertainty and defining continuously

risk areas. Therefore, NATO seems to transform into an organization aiming at managing

uncertainty and contingency, the essence of its foundation remaining the same.

It is certain that norms are permanently evolving and the effects of ethical values on

actors’ behaviors and/ or choices are not deniable. Yet, seagulls are there and they are waiting for

picking your food up.

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12

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