I’m also posting tomorrow. But it’s a small one, then I’m done for the week.

For whatever it’s worth I am still thinking aloud at this point and I’m not selling anything. I’m not so sure I’ve sold it to myself. Just had to keep writing.

I should clarify, again, that in these matters I’m especially a layperson. Pinches of salt, everyone.

 

Flavors of Peace

From an article in the often-excellent Aeon Magazine:

Language conventions speak volumes, too. It is said that the Bedouin have nearly 100 different words for camels, distinguishing between those that are calm, energetic, aggressive, smooth-gaited, or rough, etc. Although we carefully identify a multitude of wars — the Hundred Years War, the Thirty Years War, the American Civil War, the Vietnam War, and so forth — we don’t have a plural form for peace.

It makes evolutionary sense that human beings pay special attention to episodes of violence, whether interpersonal or international: they are matters of life and death, after all. But when serious scientists do the same and, what is more, when they base ‘normative’ conclusions about the human species on what is simply a consequence of their selective attention, we all have a problem.

Spurred by a discussion a few weeks ago, I was thinking about how “peaces” would be named. Surely there are many flavors of peace. Some peaces are tainted by varieties of conflict, or by their likelihood to devolve back into war- periods of instability and threatening, denouncing and military buildup, ethnic conflicts or crime waves, economic crises. Others might be defined by the resolution of a war (treaty-enforced peace, alliance-peace, military occupation). Still other kinds of peace are not defined because of how ill-defined the groups involved are (as it’s hard to war without differentiated warring groups) or by the shadow of a shared enemy (I imagine many fraternal states/cultures are forged by common enemies). Peace can also be the result of a shared history or shared military occupation. It could be a lack of interest by one or both parties in exploiting any particular aspect of the other- there’s nothing worth justifying the cost of war. Maybe the trade is too good to ruin things over. Most state peaces in history are probably the result of peer states that have roughly equal resources and power (or are members of coalitions of equal power and resources) and have no strong incentive to disrupt that stability.

EDIT: Jordan Peacock messaged me: “armistice, truce, surrender, ceasefire, union”. All often have proper names for their peace.

But there is definitely a special variety of peace that has been named definitively for centuries now:

 

The Hegemonic Peace

Many peaces in history are probably recognized by the presence of a hegemon. Hegemons exude dominant ideologies, which are communicated effectively through coercion, utility, or perceived utility. Hegemony is “is an indirect form of government, and of imperial dominance in which the hegemon (leader state) rules geopolitically subordinate states by the implied means of power, the threat of force, [and I add: soft power and apparent benefit] rather than by direct military force.” (The Wikipedia definition only covers “coersion” and not utility/perceived utility.) The dominant ideology flattens the affected landscape, allowing common methods of trade, courts and administration, often a lingua franca, and cultural belief. The tribe that birthed this ideology usually gets outsized benefits by the spreading of their self-serving norms (self-serving for reasons I’ve outlined regarding religion). The institutions that championed this ideology also benefit from setting rules and laying out agendas for foreign institutions to reform to and follow.

We generally define periods of relative regional peace by the hegemon responsible for settling the regional or international order. The classic example is Pax Romana, a two-hundred year period of large-scale peace, order, and general flourishing in early Common Era Rome (at least within her secured borders). In the Old World, various imperial powers reopened sections of the Silk Road for centuries- the Islamic caliphates in their attempt to unify a Pax Islamica (Dar al-Islam), and even the Mongols (by leveling many distinct cultural walls and laying them under common administration) in what could (even unironically!) be called Pax Mongolica. Since all “Pax” periods are the result of a military power’s control, there is commonly plenty of violence at the fringes of these imperial players. Rome expanded considerably during Pax Romana. Britain was unchallenged at sea during the hundred years of Pax Brittanica right up to World War I, but that only meant prosperous maritime trade- it did not prevent land wars in mainland Europe.

Direct governance itself is much less interesting- that’s just empire, a different power structure from hegemony with its own properties (other power structures, for contrast: confederacy, federation, unitary state). Empire is more delineated, denser, and more fragile. The two can exist in unison and feed off of each other (which frequently happens). One can turn into the other.

 

Contemporary “Pax” Hegemonies

Defining contemporary hegemony is a understandably touchy and arguable, especially to the actors involved. There are countless lists and declarations out there to be found. Generally, on the international stage there are dozens of “regional” powers, who actually control sections of the world that might’ve been large enough to call significant in ancient world maps but are not necessarily universally key players in the modern world (ex. South Africa is a key player in southern Africa; Nigeria and Ghana are key players in eastern Africa; Saudi Arabia, Iran, Turkey, and Israel in the Middle East). There may be a few unique “great powers” (also called “global powers”), consistent international actors whose voice has force beyond their borders or even continent. Finally, there may be superpowers, global hegemons who build and guide international standards, export culture and who also have the ability to coerce through unilateral action. The idea of a hyperpower was pitched in my childhood memory, but I don’t see a distinction other than that a hyperpower is a lone superpower. I suppose that maybe a hyperpower is a state for whom no Balance of Power is imaginable (coalitions against the state that can “check” it cannot possibly formed). The United States was occasionally granted this dubious distinction on and off since the fall of the USSR in 1991, but I do not see it as a useful distinction (or a necessarily true one, especially the way I just defined it).

 

From my limited perspective, there are currently three global-scale Pax Hegemonies.

Pax Americana: (1945-present). The current premier global hegemon is the United States of America. The key event is the conclusion of World War II. The United States became the main player in rebuilding of international institutions, investing billions into rebuilding both former-enemies and allies, and contrasting itself to the other emerging superpower of the Soviet Union (the global order from 1946-1991 would be more properly described through Pax Americana et Sovietica). The US has amassed an unrivaled global military capacity. The US also enjoys unrivaled soft power through mass media and renowned elite universities. Pax Americana could be argued to be a bit older than 1945 (post WWI is also an attractive starting point for economic reasons). The United States was a regional player since its inception and was influential globally for ideological reasons, and has arguably been a global power since the late 19th century, with its military adventurism and, later, its defeat of Spain. I’ve been thinking about Pax Americana as a concept since reading these two posts from David Brin.

Pax Europea (1951-present). The 1951 Treaty of Paris and the formation of European Communities created what would eventually evolve into the European Union (1992-). Even prosperous European nations have not broken beyond “global/great power” tier, but as a political entity the EU is a powerful organization. I hesitated to place Pax Europea because it really does enjoy many of the fruits of Pax Americana’s organization/guidance (and hopefully I am not seen here as being smug on behalf of my tribe).

Pax Sinica (present/unclear). China has likely consistently been at least a regional power for longer than any other state. Surely, Pax Sinica could also refer to other periods of time, each of them perhaps centuries long. I don’t know when modern Pax Sinica could be said to be established.

 

Miscellaneous Notes

Hegemon[ia] is Greek and Pax is latin. I’ve already committed to this bastard phrase.

I think that the difference between a superpower (global “pax” hegemony) and a mere “great power/global power” is difficult to tell until the borders of such a hegemony are clearly tested. This is evidently true about the apparent power of any state. I suppose that in the 1980’s the idea of a Pax Nipponica would be an obvious one, but in retrospect Japan was not a superpower but a global one (and still is a very influential global power at that, a G8 member and the #2 donor to the United Nations behind the USA).

Tribes alone can’t create a universalist message that a PH needs in order to operate effectively- even the Mongols had to manage institutions.

The earliest PH’s were high-functioning T+I organizations, agricultural empires with effective markets and courts.

Pax Brittanica might have been the first effective T+I+M society. The USA modeled itself off of this “special relationship” in the late 19th and early 20th century. The dynamic of this relationship obviously shifted as Britain waned and the USA waxed. Notably, the Pax Americana model was less overtly imperial than Brittanica was, being especially lenient with fallen global powers post-WWII. I am not forgetting our excursions in Latin America or the Middle East, though (filibuster is/was such a strange word!)

While looking at empires, I was surprised to see how many came close to dominating half of the human race. The British Empire presided over 20% of the world’s population, slightly less than the Roman Empire (21%, although ~10x fewer people in absolute terms). The Tang Dynasty housed 38%.  The Indian Maurya Empire encompassed 43% of the human race at the time. The Achaemenids conquered nearly 45% of humanity. In absolute terms, the British Empire (458m people, 20% of the then-world) and the Qing Dynasty (432m, at one point 39% of the then-world) are untouchable. [My source: the infallible wikipedia.]

Ultimately, I’m not sure if I’m happy with the sketch I’ve outlined above, but it’s something. Something concrete put to paper and now I can mull about it a little bit more effectively.