Militarism and Hegemonic (In)stability in the Age of Private Wars

For the last five centuries, nation-states have excelled in the art of war, thanks to the help of capitalism. Politics assumed the responsibility of determining whom to kill and why, of finding the ‘just cause’ for war. The market, on the other hand, occupied itself with supplying the instruments of slaughter. It is like saying that for centuries war has carried out a political, and therefore, public, function; but that private actors have always claimed wide margins of manoeuvre, and profit, in all the activities connected to its management.

English