The Modern City-State, Part II

"I change too quickly: my today refutes my yesterday. When I ascend I often jump over steps, and no step forgives me that." 

"Oh great star! What would your happiness be if you did not have us to shine for?"  

- Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra

      Globalization is a contemporary word for what history has shown to be a group of reoccurring phenomenon: the spread of disruptive technologies, migrant populations, capital, ideas, etc., across state borders. Contemporary globalization is simultaneously undermining a facet of state sovereignty on the one hand while further embedding cities into the fabric of International Relations (IR) on the other. Far from a period of decline, however, states are still the primary actors in IR and as such, are the foundation upon which today's state-centric system of IR rests.

      Exercising less formal authority than their national overlords do, cities increasingly act as release valves for the state; they lessen the degree to which pressures of globalization work upon and through state borders. Today we undoubtedly live in a world that is undergoing a period of authoritative re-calibration (re-territorialization) whereby states writ large are failing to manage the forces both within and without of society, economics, finance, security, etc. But make no mistake: this period of adjustment will approach an equilibrium sooner or later.

      This is not only expected but welcomed because, whatever faults or weaknesses the Westphalian, state-centric model of IR may harbor today, society has yet to design a better system to manage international affairs. And yet, the steady march of urban expansion, connectivity, and evolution in the past couple of decades has progressed in lock-step  with the establishment of a more accommodating socio-economic regime within which cities have nested themselves. In other words, cities are more wealthy, numerous, healthy, and connected than they've ever been in the past. Most cities enjoy protection from foreign militaries: the cosmopolitan city - however autonomous it may be - resides within national borders and is therefore subject to state-centric domestic legal structures and authorities. In contrast, classical Greek city-states valued liberty over collective security and - the Greek alliance against the Persian invaders notwithstanding - as a result, every individual city-state fell prey to, first, the Macedonians and then Rome. Today's 'city-states' - New York, Chicago, Hong Kong, Doha, Dubai, etc., - are thankfully not responsible for their own security. This has enabled the modern city to focus more of its attention toward, inter alia, capital accumulation, expansion of their service sectors, and trade networks. At least since the late 1970's, cities have leveraged this comparative advantage to secure and strengthen more power within the state-centric arena of IR. And as the number of large, commercial cities continues to expand within and across state borders, both their relative power vis a v. the state and their absolute power in international affairs will increase exponentially.

      This development is encouraging because the state as the principal actor within IR is finding itself frequently unable or ill-suited to manage social, economic, financial, cultural, etc., issues in a globalizing society. This doesn't mean, however, that the state-centric system is doomed. Far from it. In fact, the relative power of states in military and managerial terms has grown rapidly since the end of World War II. How can that be? How can the state simultaneously lose and gain power in international affairs? Wouldn't the result of globalization as a negative force, and military expansion as a positive force, cancel out each other thereby having a neutral effect upon state sovereignty? The answers to these questions are easy to answer so long as one understands that the institution - the principle - of sovereignty is not unified, but very dynamic.

      When most people think of sovereignty, they are thinking of what IR scholars - particularly Stephen Krasner - call "Westphalian Sovereignty", or the universal legal protection of states from foreign intervention. The norm of non-intervention began to be codified after the conclusion of the central European Thirty Years' War between, amongst many others, the Holy Roman Empire and its souther-German allies on one side, against Protestant (more or less) northern-German principalities, Sweden, and - eventually - France. The Holy Roman Empire was ruled by the Habsburg Dynasty which, in 1521, split into two family branches that resided on opposite sides of continental Europe. The senior branch resided in Spain while the junior branch governed from Austria. The conflict lasted for thirty years and decimated the population of central Europe, particularly the populations of the Germanic principalities: some 30% of the citizenry died in the heart of Europe. The respective combatant rulers were so moved by the war's devastation that they brought an end to the conflict and began the process of reconciliation whereby it was decided that each prince (sovereign ruler for that matter) had the exclusive right of determining the religion of his lands and, as a result, the religion of his subjects. (read: the Protestant Reformation and Catholic counter-Reformation triggered the war by divorcing huge swaths of populations and lands from their former Catholic overlords). This right of religious exclusivity given to sovereign rulers was the foundation for today's international norm of non-intervention. Interestingly enough, the Peace of Westphalia also required rulers to honor universal minority rights: Protestant Lutheranism and Calvinism were given the status of full socio-politico legitimacy, freeing those individuals who were religious minorities from confessional persecution. After all, the truest catalyst for the war's beginning was the Habsburg's strategy of minority persecution at the local level and institutional marginalization of Protestants at the Imperial level. So in a way, the Peace of Westphalia established conflicting norms: the universal norm of non-intervention on the one hand, and continental protections accorded to religious minorities on the other.

      Here is where most discussions of sovereignty end, but in so doing they fail to capture the other institutional dynamics of sovereignty. Would you believe that, in addition to non-intervention/Westphalian sovereignty, there exist today three (3) more types of sovereignty? That was a rhetorical question; they exist.

1. International Legal Sovereignty - according to Krasner (2002): "Recognized jurisdictionally independent territorial entities which [have] the right to freely decide which agreements or treaties they will enter into" (3). A state with international legal sovereignty can join, for instance, the World Trade Organization (WTO), sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), etc;
2. Effective Domestic Sovereignty - which "implies that there is an independent authority structure within a recognized territory capable of effectively regulating activities within its own borders" (ibid). So is the police apparatus of state X capable of maintaining law and order throughout the territory of the state? Are their pockets of unrest and militant extremism that are so isolated that the central government can not bring them to heel? At this point, one should start to notice that, unlike the purely legal nature of international legal sovereignty, effective domestic sovereignty can be lacking in state with weak central authority structures. Look at Somalia. So to a certain degree, the forces that enable or prohibit a state from controlling events inside its borders can operate against and outside of the state's ability to control them;  
3. Interdependence/Globalization Sovereignty - This is the newest articulation of sovereignty (or is it?), and this type of sovereignty is the one we hear of most often in the news. The New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman drew upon his... extensive experience from his... long career as a scholar of international relations (read: he has no experience and, therefore, had no career in that field) to reach the conclusion that technological advances in communication, fiber-optic wiring, cell phones, travel, etc., have collectively "shrunk" the world by reducing the amount of time and space needed to act in today's globalized world, and as a result "The World is Flat". In other words, the state-centric approach to IR analysis is now inappropriate because these advances have, firstly, more or less leveled the playing field between strong and weak state actors and, secondly, enabled non-state actors like NGO's, transnational corporations, and militant extremists, to exert power on the world stage. Friedman's argument is interesting, but absolutely false. Power, or the ability to act, is still the single-most important force in the world today. The U.S. military apparatus and price-tag is larger than its next 14-15 competitors combined. Is that flat? Of course not. 

      Granted, ideas of political equality can permeate through state borders and 'infect' the populations of tyrannical regimes leading to popular protests, viz. the Arab Spring. But most of the now defunct regimes from the Middle East (Tunisia, Egypt, Libya) were brought down from within and after major world powers called for the dictators to step down. While the regime changes in Tunisia and Egypt were relatively bloodless, Libya erupted into all out civil war costing thousands of lives. The death toll from today's raging Syrian civil war has undoubtedly topped 70,000 people. So while Twitter and Facebook served as the platforms through which popular uprisings were channeled, the very real response from authority structures was deadly. Communication networks, ideas, protests, etc., in and of themselves can not topple a regime: only cold steel and hot lead can.

     If one is able to see sovereignty as a multi-faceted - indeed, more complex - system of legal norms, social processes, and power relations then one has the ability to study the modern interaction between the primary agents within the system of IR. The two most important actors in this system are states and cities. It is true that globalizing forces of communication, transport, capital flows, etc., are ceaselessly conflicting with state sovereignty. How states are to compensate for this relative loss of sovereignty is unknown and many states will be forced to discover the answer alone. A more troubling reality will be the inability of weak states to adopt strategies for controlling globalized forces that have been implemented by more powerful states. In effect, the complexity of today's world is inherently chaotic and chaos is the antithesis to the state-centric model of IR.

      An encouraging insight for IR theory is this: while the forces of globalization pose challenges for state authority, these forces are a boon for urban centers, particularly cities. By nature, cities are chaotic, informal, and the processes by which urban institutions manifest themselves are the result of unplanned opportunities just as much as planned initiatives.

      Crucially, however, cities will begin to - and indeed are encouraged to - resemble the ancient city-states of Classical Greece, China, and the early Islamic Caliphate, etc. The key to this reemergence of city-states is the ease with which urbanites construct urban identities. To be a citizen of Athens, Aleppo, Cordoba, Corinth, etc., was to identify oneself as an Athenian, Aleppan, etc., etc., before anything else. Urban identities are more tangible, more salient - more dear - to city-dwellers than the geographic identities of either the state or of the nation. While the developed world struggles to both escape its stagnant economic recovery and reverse negative demographic trends, modern city-states should be encouraged to flourish not only because they are engines of growth, but because they are the most appropriate model for the 21st-century economy.

      As sure as the sun rises from behind the eastern horizon, the city-state is today reborn: shield thicker than before, bronze helmet polished to Athenian-gold, and a Spartan blood-crimson cloak unfurled in the wind.

HISTORICAL NARRATIVE OF THE CITY-STATE

A non-Apologetic Appraisal of Hizballah, Hamas, and Political Islam

     If there's any lesson to be drawn from the Boston Marathon bombings it is that Americans will grab for any answer to the dilemma of militant extremism which is neither Islamic nor political by nature. To conjure the specter of "terrorism' - an image clear to the U.S. and Western publics - is to choose the path of least resistance. Terrorism, viewed as a militant corruption of political activism, serves as a convenient, albeit misguided, coping mechanism. Do not misinterpret my intention this early in the post: al-Qaeda perpetrated a heinous act of cold-blooded murder on 9/11, and the Tsaranev brothers are guilty of a similar offense. If I had my chance to exact revenge on bin-Laden (UBL), I'd tell him the same thing Marcellus Wallace told "Zed" he was about to do in Quentin Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction": "I'm gonna' get medieval on your ass!" But after exhausting my efforts of putting UBL through the gauntlet, I suspect a cold feeling of discomfort would continue unabated so long as chaos and uncertainty threatened to disrupt my life.

     It wasn't surprising that most U.S. news agencies speculated that the Boston bombers established connections with the Chechen separatist movement of southern Russia. That speculation was expected and is typical of our media institutions, led by individuals unworthy of Walter Cronkite, David Halberstam, and other paragons of honest journalism. What surprised me was the instantaneous public reaction to this speculation: if it's on T.V. it must be true. Never mind the Tsaranev's upbringing in central Asia's Kyrgyzstan, a state as difficult to locate on a map as is its name is to pronounce (10 street credit points to those who know its capital city!). And let us disregard the fact that the Chechen separatist movement - notwithstanding a particularly horrific episode where hundreds of Russian schoolchildren were murdered in cold blood - has one of the more legitimate claims for independence amongst the spectrum of resistance movements throughout the world. No, these considerations and many more were overridden by the public's need to establish connections, assign blame, in anticipation of the eventual military response against an identified threat which - unsurprisingly - was motivated by that same vein of Salafiyyah militant Islam characteristic of al-Qaeda (not the Taliban: the Taliban's ideology, the Deobandi school of thought, grew out of an Indian sect of missionary Islam (al-dawah) based in the Muslim enclave of Deoband).

     Alas, unless George W. abrogates the Constitution by winning the Presidency once more, it is unlikely that the U.S. public will swallow another pile of bull-shit ala Iraqi WMDs. No, the conclusion to the Boston attack will be more anti-climatic than the public realizes. Ironically, this letdown is the very reason why the public will not rest easy: a ruthless attack perpetrated by 'lone-wolf' outcasts who were motivated by anger and a desire to hurt innocents is more destabilizing than an orchestrated attack. In the meantime, we'll blame political Islam and the phenomenon of Islamic Terrorism.

     By doing so we will stay mired in what George Friedman calls the "Terror Trap" in his book The Next Decade: Empire and Republic in a Changing World (2012). The trap was sprung when the U.S. launched its "War on Terror." How does one defeat terrorism? Rather, how does one defeat a battlefield tactic? It's as if the British sought to defeat the act of 'sniping' carried out by militia sharpshooters during the U.S. Revolutionary War of Independence. To win, the British would have to kill or capture every single person capable of becoming a sniper! Impossible. And what do we make of the D.C. sniper attacks in 2002? The greater D.C. area was gripped with fear as John Allen Muhammad and his younger accomplice Lee Boyd Malvo roamed Interstate 95 in Virgina eventually killing 10 random civilians. After arrested, however, Muhammad and Malvo were tried in Virginia state court for murder instead of terrorism despite all indications that acts of 'Terror,' as we understand the term, were perpetrated. As for the Tsaranev brothers' attack in Boston recently, President Obama tried to indirectly moderate the national discussion through his reluctance to label the attack an "Act of Terror,' and for good reason. In the face of political pressure though, a White House aide quickly placated the American public by confirming, in fact, that the attack was an act of terror because "Whenever multiple bombs are used, it is an act of terror" (paraphrase). Wait a minute? Isn't terrorism the act of instilling fear in the public in order to, inter alia, achieve political goals? So how or why did the Obama administration think it legitimate to label this an act of terror before the perpetrators were arrested and before their motives were known? The truth is is that we've latched on to terrorists as a familiar enemy just like we did during the Cold War; Communism was then the monolithic creature haunting our dreams at night. Better to be haunted by a known enemy than a unknown one, or so the logic demands.

     We have now exposed the truest cause of our need to apply a catch-all phrase, Terrorism, to a infinitely complex array of chaotic forces. The issue is more fundamental than a strategic imperative. Terrorists of today stand in stark moral contrast to extremists from the past. Sure, al-Qaeda and global jihadi groups seek neither political representation nor accommodation. There's is a struggle between civilizations. But what of Hizballah and Hamas? the Shia' resistance movement based in southern Lebanon and the Palestinian terrorist organization pursuing 'self-determination' as a political end by employing military and political means, respectively. Both of these groups are guilty of murder, but murder is not their modus operandi; grassroots political activism is. In fact, they've relied consistently upon political institutions more than missionary or jihadi alternatives. Contrary to secular practice, religion and politics are not mutually exclusive options, and in the case of Islam the two are inextricably linked. Unlike Christianity, the birth of Islam developed in lock-step with a correspondingly successful military campaign that swept through the Arabian Peninsula and across North Africa. The result of that dichotomous relationship between church and state legitimacy was an unimpeded infusion of Islamic ideals into the state apparatus. Social norms and state institutions were built upon Islamic foundations. Christians, on the other hand, were suppressed by the Roman Empire and forced to obey pagan institutions that honored Caesar as God. The one true irony of Western liberal democracy is that its institutions were borne from weakness not an inherent strength that the Muslim Umma lacked.

     How do we categorize the anarchist movements of the nineteenth century? Is it not a mark of progress today that laborers enjoy safe work conditions and reasonable five-day work weeks? Whence did these rights come from? Answer: from the collective strike, the hidden gun, and well-timed bomb. British suffragettes used extreme measures to achieve political ends. "They broke windows, planted bombs, and hurled Molotov cocktails through the windows of politicians' homes, public buildings, and shops" (Norton, On the Muslim Question, 2013, p. 83 ). Their successful efforts informed today's constitutions of the UK, France, and the United States. Women's' right to vote and access to equal pay in the workplace "were, as Nietzsche said of all great things, 'soaked in blood thoroughly, and for a long time' " (Ibid, 85).

     Likewise, the nascent independence movement of the U.S. colonies finally broke free from British suzerainty, not through political machinations, but in spite of them. Only a military struggle achieved what parliamentary democracy could not. Similar to today's resistance movements in Palestine and the Levant, General Washington's regular army and supplement of rag-tag militias refused to lay down their arms as "a precondition for negotiations." It is therefore puzzling that the West so easily labels Hizballah and Hamas as evil forces on the one hand, while romanticizing the exploits of colonial militias on the other.

     We forget to interpret our struggle for independence as an historical precursor to Islamic resistance movements. Our struggle for independence was not a random disruption in our minds, but an explosive reaction to long-simmering forces. Then again, we framed the issue. Because we were actors in that continental drama, the randomness of events and the violent overthrow of the colonial status quo were validations of our political aims. British fear, panic, and unease were the corollaries to our frustration with political servitude, an apathetic crown, and the eventual decision to work outside of British institutions that neither addressed nor respected colonial grievances. These were the reasons the colonies employed militant tactics; tactics considered then by the British and the U.S. today as anathema to liberal democratic institutions.

     Our militant independence movement manifest itself only after non-violent, political petitions for representation were rebuffed. Petitions for a redress from grievances were exhausted. Independence was achieved, but not without a great loss of life and presumable lesson for posterity: in life and death, ends often justify the means.

     After two-and-a-quarter centuries the U.S. enjoyed the status as the pre-eminent superpower - the only superpower - capable of subduing the world with hot lead and warm ideals. 9/11 shattered that confidence, not because al-Qaeda represented an existential threat - it didn't then and surely does not today. Our paranoia was borne from a more pernicious fear of chaos. "When the world becomes uncertain, people feel that a once orderly place has become random. Randomness, when it concerns matters of life and death, of change and an uncertain future, is terrifying" (Ibid, 87). However shocking and disgusting the attacks on 9/11 were a priori, it was the perceived loss of control the U.S. experienced and the introduction into the U.S. hegemonic narrative of chaos that terrified the U.S. public. This rupture was compounded by our naive belief that we had succeeded in establishing a new world order after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, an order built by the U.S. and, for the foreseeable future, controlled by the U.S. While some added control did accrue to U.S. institutions, that development was not the cause but an effect of a power vacuum. Crucially, chaos as a force acting within the field of international relations could never - and will never - be eradicated.

     Al-Qaeda's attack was nothing more than a harbinger of a more chaotic field of unconventional forces working at the seams of an outdated system built upon Westphalian sovereignty. Asymmetric warfare as practiced by, inter alia, Hizballah and Hamas today is relied upon because these groups must redefine the rules of war. Up until the successful resistance of two Israeli invasions of souther Lebanon - in 1982 and 2006 -  separatist movements only succeeded at damage control. The Chechens were bombed into the Neolithic age during their second war with Russia. On the streets mean streets of Balbek in southern Lebanon, however, Hizballah used bottlenecks and blind-spots to effectively deploy their rocket forces. Hamas military victories have proven more allusive for other reasons, chiefly the overwhelming force applied to the Gaza Strip by the Israeli armed forces. And the 1983 U.S. Marines barracks bombing carried out by the cover group "The Free Islamic Revolutionary Movement," resulted in the deaths of 241 U.S. troops (It should be noted that at this time the U.S. had effectively sided with the Maronite coalition against the Shia' in the Lebanese Sectarian Civil War). The immediate result of this attack was the removal by the late President Reagan of U.S. Marines from Lebanese soil the following year. What were the costs to Hizballah from that attack? A single bomber's life, the name of which is to this day unknown. The truck and explosives cost the organization roughtly $1,500-$2,000. Hizballah had discovered a strategy that allowed them to even the odds with Israel and the U.S.

     This is not an attempt to either excuse the targeting of innocent civilians or accept the premise that resistance movements and dialogue are mutually exclusive options. Moreover, I suspect a majority of Hizballah and Hamas leaders share a similar distaste for plain murder and uncompromising militancy as well. Full disclosure: These groups have been guilty of atrocious acts of unwarranted violence. And yet, it's surprising why the West tries to differentiate between war writ large, and the atrocities perpetrated during war. War, for all intents and purposes, is the effort to extinguish life, and it is therefore expected that enemy combatants will err on the side of caution at the regrettable expense of acting immorally. Similar to the passage of time, Death waits for no man.

     Hizballah and Hamas either have been or currently are engaged in outright war with the West. It is telling, however that these groups have insisted upon operating within political frameworks, however imperfect the results. Neither these groups nor their benefactor, Iran, espouse the hatred typical of al-Qaeda. The former use militancy as a means to a political end, and grandstand to garner popular support (al-Qaeda's actions are not so subtle). Our forefathers did very much the same, and resistance movements will do the same not so much if they are able, but when they have no other choice.

     Those who insist that Hizballah lay down their weapons forget why they picked them up in the first place in 1982. And to lament Hamas' unwillingness to renounce violence as a precondition for negotiations with Israel and the U.S. is tantamount to laying the blame at the feet of David if he were to refuse the entreaties of moderates for him to lay down his sling before 'negotiating' with Goliath. "What am I to do," he would respond, "if a peaceful accord should prove allusive? Where then should I find safety if not from my sling?!" That 'moderate' precondition, however genuine, exposed him to the giant's sudden wrath the moment dialogue broke down.

     We must eradicate all forms of the word "Terrorism" from our political discussions. Each and every one of its forms are poisonous. Asymmetry is a far more appropriate substitute that at once conveys a useful description of reality while moderating the discussion so that an honest appraisal of contentious politics can take place. Asymmetry is an admission of weakness by a group with real political claims as they are confronted with an asymmetrical balance of conventional forces.