ABSTRACT
We have grown familiar in recent times with speeches by American Presidents
about ‘reconstruction’, a concept that has become a central part of the currency
of contemporary IR. Yet the liberal idea that you should defeat your enemy and
then re-build his economy in order to make the vanquished state and society
see the future in a less militaristic way is one that has only developed since the
First World War. It is certainly the case that after previous wars, such as those
against revolutionary France, it was seen as essential to bring the reprobate
defeated state back into the society of nations. Talleyrand was given equal billing
with Britain, Russia and Prussia at the discussion that led to the Treaty of Vienna in
1815. But to actually reconstruct a defeated enemy is a more modern concept. And,
as was shown in the last chapter, the discrediting of reparation as a tool to pre-
vent future wars was beginning to lead to the changed logic of ‘reconstruction’.
