ABSTRACT
War in its sheer malice is the worst disorder possible; nevertheless, being declared and continuous, the disruptive action of the enemy becomes a great lesson in the rational ordering of one’s own conduct. The enemy is in that respect like any dangerous natural force—floods, pests, or storms at sea—against which the arts of government 439and defence were originally devised; and war therefore very much strengthens and tightens order within the lines of each belligerent. Yet to destroy this order in the enemy, to disperse his forces and annihilate his power, is precisely the purpose of war; so that there is a kind of formal contradiction or irony in it, heightening and concentrating order here, in order to produce anarchy there. For civilised war is a struggle between governments, not between peoples. On submission, the enemy population is to be spared, assisted, and perhaps annexed, which is the greatest but most unwelcome compliment that one people can pay to another. At any rate a very strict order is at once to be established among the vanquished and prolonged afterwards under a treaty of peace. So that the systematic effort to create disorder in the enemy ranks is only incidental and provisional; what is to be disorganised is merely the power of the enemy to interfere with one’s own organisation.
