1

Presented at the March 2008 SWPSA (unrevised version)

Carl Schmitt, The New Nomos of the Earth, and Terrorism

The writings of the German juridical thinker and political theologian Carl Schmitt have

generated a great deal of interest in the last several decades. Schmitt’s arguments have attracted

the notice of a wide range of scholars and thinkers.

Schmitt’s works cover a very wide array of topics. I wish to focus on a subject that is given

little attention, at least among political theorists. This is his extended and rich treatment of what

was for him the newly emerging problem of terrorism1 and its relationship to a new nomos of the

earth. Schmitt, much more so than other important thinkers of the 20th century, provides a rich

and insightful framework for understanding the complex relationship between juridical thought,

geography, technology, and theology. I will not maintain that Schmitt’s analysis is

comprehensively correct. But I will defend the proposition that Schmitt provides us with the

proper tools to begin to understand the contemporary situation of world politics more than any

other recent thinker.

Only Schmitt’s Analysis Can Save Us Now

There is a prominent strain of 20th century thought that denies reason any kind of role in helping

us to make decisions about what is to be done politically. This school of thought is epitomized

in the arguments advanced by Martin Heidegger.

1
Schmitt equates terrorists with his more commonly used term partisans. See Theory of the Partisan, p. 73.
 2

Heidegger is famous for announcing, in a posthumously published interview with Der Spiegel,

“That Only a God Can Save Us Now.” He meant of course that only the mysterious dispensation

of fate could save us from the technological frenzy causing the degradation of man and nature.

The only way to avoid being further enmeshed in the grip of modern technology is “letting-go.”

At best one can hope that as the danger grows the saving power will also.2

Schmitt categorically rejected Heidegger’s irrational passivity. “The existence of modern

technology should neither make us drunk nor lead us to despair. We need neither abandon

reason nor cease to consider rationally all the possibilities of a new nomos of the earth.”3 Of

course Schmitt rejected the ideas of those who place their faith in technology to solve perennial

human problems. He denied the hopes of the “prognosticator of widespread technical optimism”

that foresees phenomena like terrorism succumbing to “an irresistible industrial-technical

development of mankind” that “transfers all problems. . .to a completely new level, on which the

old questions, types, and situations become practically unimportant.”4 A “purely technical view”

within the horizon of those who think of technology as the saving power “anticipate(s) a new

world with a new man.” Here combat, war, terrorism, and enmity itself disappear of their “own

accord in the smooth –running fulfillment of technical-functional forces, just as a dog disappears

on the freeway.”5

2
See the Der Spiegel interview “Only a God Can Save Us Now,” the “Gelassenheit” essay and “Memorial Address”
in Discourse on Thinking and The Question Concerning Technology for relevant passages from Heidegger. See also
pp. 9-11 of Leo Strauss’ Preface to Spinoza’s Critique of Religion and pp. 26-28 of Natural Right and History.

3
Carl Schmitt, “The New Nomos of the Earth” in The Nomos of the Earth in the International Law of the Jus
Publicum Europaeum, trans. G.L. Ulmen (New York: Telos Press, 2003) p. 355. Hereafter Nomos.

4
Carl Schmitt, Theory of the Partisan, trans. G. L. Ulmen (New York: Telos Press, 2007) p. 78. Hereafter Partisan.

5
Partisan, p. 76.
 3

This technical-optimistic viewpoint is the flip side of Heidegger’s technical-pessimistic vision.

A recent example of the technical-optimistic viewpoint is found in Francis Fukuyama’s The End

of History and the Last Man.6 Schmitt understood the tremendous affect of technology on human

problems, especially the larger problem of war and peace and the particular problem of terrorism.

He argued that the technical-industrial aspect of the modern partisan “dominates everything.”

Modern science and technology have transformed the partisan or terrorist. As modern technology

progresses, the terrorist must embrace contemporary weapons, transport, and communication.7

But in Schmitt’s analysis, modern technology, which “dominates everything,” is dependent

upon the “global-political context.”8 It is this context that has forced the partisan to adopt

modern technology. Science or technical knowledge is dependent on politics according to

Schmitt.

This is why Schmitt refused to embrace either the technical-optimistic or pessimistic arguments

prevalent in his day and ours.9 Like Heidegger and Fukuyama, he did think that we were at a

critical point in human history. Schmitt argued that “the old nomos collapsed, and with it a

whole system of accepted measures, concepts, and customs.” But while we have seen that he

clearly rejected the ideas of technologically driven progress eliminating human problems, he also

refused to succumb to Heidegger’s pessimism. “But what is coming is not therefore

6
Fukuyama’s viewpoint is optimistic at least insofar as it envisions the inevitable victory of western liberal-
consumer regimes and to borrow a phrase from Woodrow Wilson, “peace with an aspect of permanence.”

7
Partisan, p.76.

8
Ibid, p. 74.

9
Schmitt was on friendly terms and exchanged letters with Alexander Kojeve, the great Marxist-Hegelian-
Heideggerian thinker from whom Fukuyama (mis)appropriated his arguments. (REFERENCE)
 4

boundlessness or a nothingness hostile to nomos. Also in the timorous rings of old and new

forces, right measures and meaningful proportions can originate.” Against Heidegger’s despair

over the flight of the gods, Schmitt says “Also here are gods and rules, great is their mass.”10

Schmitt is not waiting for a god to save us. There are already gods and rules here. These are not

created or willed into existence by the thinker. Schmitt’s procedure is to look at the historical

relationship and contemporary interaction between ideas (juridical thought, theology) and spatial

phenomena (geography in the broad sense). From this study the “theoretician can do no more

than verify concepts and call things by name.”11 But this prosaic sounding activity leads directly

into the study of the concept of the political as it appears in our day and the new nomos of the

earth. Schmitt is pointing to an understanding of the right measures and meaningful proportions,

of the gods and rules. This understanding should help guide political action.

Understanding and Political Activity: Or What About Leo Strauss and His Students?

Of course Schmitt had a powerful interlocutor or opponent who like him opposed the irrational

pessimism of Heidegger as well as the optimistic progressivism of Kojeve—Leo Strauss.12 But

for the purposes of understanding the fundamental drift of world politics, I will argue that

Schmitt is superior to Strauss.

10
Nomos, p. 355, cf. Heidegger’s Introduction to Metaphysics, trans. Ralph Mannheim, p. 38 and 37-51.

11
Partisan, p. 95.

12
For Strauss’ overt opposition to Heidegger, see for instance ch. 2 of Natural Right and History, ch. 1 of What Is
Political Philosophy, and ch. 3 of The Rebirth of Classical Political Rationalism. Strauss makes a more nuanced
argument on Heideggerian historicism in ch. ???? of What is Political Philosophy? Strauss’ argument against
Kojeve’s historicist progressivism is presented in On Tyranny, principally “Leo Strauss: Restatement on Xenophon’s
Hiero.”
 5

I do not mean to say that Schmitt was superior to Strauss as a philosophical thinker. I am

unaware of any evidence that Schmitt considered himself to be a philosopher. I believe that

Strauss understood himself to be a philosopher, and I believe he was right to do so. In my

humble opinion, Strauss was far and away the greatest philosopher of the 20th century—perhaps

the only philosopher of the last 100 years.

It was Strauss’ passionate concern for the activity of philosophy as well as his polemical works

against the primarily historicist enemies of philosophy that make his writings less helpful than

Schmitt’s for understanding the political problems of our day. Strauss nowhere has an extended

treatment of a contemporary political problem. When he does discuss contemporary politics, it is

inevitably situated in a discussion principally devoted to ideas largely divorced from

political/historical or “spatial” circumstances.13

And therein lies the superiority of Schmitt to Strauss for the purpose I mention above. Schmitt

devotes a great deal of energy to contemporary political questions and to considerations of

concrete circumstances such as geography and military affairs. Strauss’ remarks on politics are

insightful but occasional.14 On the other hand, Schmitt did learn from his exchange with Strauss

over The Concept of the Political.15 It is I think fair to say that Strauss was a deeper thinker, and

13
See for example Strauss’ autobiographical preface (the preface to Spinoza’s Critique of Religion also found as
chapter 9 in Liberalism: Ancient and Modern), the Introduction to The City and Man, and “Kurt Riezler” in What Is
Political Philosophy?

14
For a thoughtful dissenting view, see Thomas West, “Leo Strauss and American Foreign Policy” at
http://www.claremont.org/publications/crb/id.1075/article_detail.asp.

15
See Heinrich Meier’s Carl Schmitt and Leo Strauss: The Hidden Dialogue, trans. J. Harvey Lomax (Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 2006). Meier’s brilliant and carefully argued work demonstrates that Strauss taught
Schmitt that his initial version of The Concept of the Political was infected, unknown to Schmitt, by the very liberal
ideas Schmitt was criticizing. This is another indication of Strauss’ superiority to Schmitt as a philosophical thinker.
 6

hence Schmitt could learn from him more than Strauss could learn from Schmitt. But Strauss,

chiefly concerned with resurrecting the possibility of philosophy in the face of Heidegger,

Kojeve, and their epigoni, devoted little time to the political challenges of his day or the future.

It was these challenges which Schmitt wrote about most.

Some otherwise excellent Straussian scholarship on Schmitt exemplifies the tendency of the

Straussian sect16 to focus on the history of ideas at the expense of political considerations.

Thomas Pangle and Peter Ahrensdorf’s Justice Among Nations is a fine example. The text is an

always interesting and sometimes brilliant examination of the theoretical arguments of

principally Western philosophers and theologians pertaining to justice in international affairs. As

an excellent examination of ideas about justice in world politics, it is the best text of its kind.

Unfortunately this “disembodied” approach makes it less than ideal as a guide for how to think

about justice among nations for the purposes of political action.

Several examples should be enough to illustrate this point. First, Pangle and Ahrensdorf do not

consider the effect of technological changes, geographical discoveries or civilizational

differences. It is problematic to ignore the fact that much of world politics from the 15th to the

20th centuries was dominated by the difference between land and sea power or that conceptions

of geography radically affect ideas about justice between different regimes.

Second, important historical events (i.e. the Crusades or World War I) receive only cursory

attention for the changes they wrought on ideas about justice. At best the historical events

16
See Strauss’ “Restatement” and Nathan Tarcov’s “On a Certain Critique of Straussianism.” The Review of Politics,
vol. 53, n. 1 (Winter 1991), pp. 3-18.
 7

provide the occasion for a thinker to formulate ideas differently.17 Pangle, like Strauss, is

primarily concerned with the activity of philosophy. Politics in his account merely provides the

setting for the philosopher to pursue philosophy.

I do not wish to maintain that the Straussian methodology employed by Pangle is weak

thinking. It makes perfect sense if one is more concerned about philosophy as a way of life than

politics. Political theory is above all concerned with philosophy, and politics merely provides

the context in which the philosopher carries on his activity in Strauss’account.18

Two other highly intelligent Straussian accounts of Schmitt also exemplify this problem.

Heinrich Meier, in his excellent The Lesson of Carl Schmitt, sees Schmitt as the archetype of a

political theologian. A similar argument in much abbreviated form is offered by Harry Neumann

in “Eternal and Temporal Enemies, Carl Schmitt’s Political Theology.”19 Both Meier and

Neumann stress the antinomian character of Schmitt’s political theology. They emphasize

statements by Schmitt that argue for a God that is beyond good and evil, and the desire for divine

17
Pangle’s fascinating account of Cicero’s arguments on justice among nations is a helpful example. The change
from city to empire provides an occasion to re-think ideas of justice for Pangle. As for Strauss, the key issue is
philosophical activity, not actual political relations.

18
This argument is advanced with striking clarity by Strauss in the Introduction to Persecution and the Art of
Writing. Here the philosopher’s political activity is presented as an exoteric protection from religious prejudice.
The political philosopher has more in common with Epicurean philosophers than he does with his fellow citizens or
pious believers. See especially p. 18 and context as well as p. 10 and context.

19
Heinrich Meier, The Lesson of Carl Schmitt, trans. J. Harvey Lomax (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998)
and Harry Neumann, “Eternal and Temporal Enemies, Carl Schmitt’s Political Theology.” Political Communication 9,
n. 3 (1992): 279-284.
 8

commands and not law. Radical obedience to a God beyond constraint, knowable only through

revelation, is the core teaching of Meier and Neumann’s Schmitt.20

Meier and Neumann are generally correct insofar as they go. Meier in particular documents in

great detail this strain of Schmitt’s thought. Schmitt’s extensive remarks on political theology

are well characterized by both authors. Unfortunately, that is not the whole story.

Neither Meier nor Neumann treat Schmitt’s tremendous concern for order or his praise of the

beneficent effects of law broadly conceived. Much of Schmitt’s Nomos of the Earth is just that—

Schmitt simply does not praise the arbitrary commands of God at the expense of law. Instead the

work as a whole is an extended argument for the benefits of the secularized European nation-

state. “In the epoch of international law, which lasted from the 16th to the end of the 19th

century, there was real progress, namely a limiting and bracketing of European wars.”21 Schmitt

describes this process as necessarily entailing the secularization of theological arguments or

“silencing” the theologians.22 The dominant fact of Western civilization in the Middle Ages for

Schmitt was the respublica Christiana. The respublica Christiana was above all characterized by

empire and priesthood, both oriented toward Catholic Rome. The office of the Holy Roman

Emperor was first of all to act as the katechon or restrainer of the Anti-Christ.23

Despite this understanding of the centrality of Christian faith to the Middle Ages, Schmitt does

not lament the passing of the respublica Christiana or call for its restoration. He argues that it

20
See Meier Lesson pp. 18-21, 87-95 and Neumann p. 279ff.

21
Nomos p. 140.

22
Ibid, p. 128ff

23
Ibid, pp. 59-62, cf. 120.
 9

was Christian theology, in particular the abstract thinking of the late scholastic tradition

epitomized by Vitoria, that led to the development of doctrines associated with modern

international law.24 This is all treated in a very matter of fact way—Schmitt certainly does not

criticize the Christian public order of the Middle Ages, but he praises the secularized doctrines

which succeeded it for their humanity. Meier and Neumann do not note this fact at all. Schmitt

does not associate the collapse of the European public order in the late 19th and early 20th

centuries with theological concerns.25

I believe that the best way to characterize Schmitt’s thought is that of neither a philosopher nor

a theologian of any sort, but a jurist. As a jurist he is above all concerned with interpreting and

maintaining the law broadly understood. This is in the interest of avoiding chaos. Schmitt’s

concern was above all to promote a decent, humane legal order. That he failed miserably in his

encounter with the Nazis is evidence of the problems inherent to focusing on the avoidance of

chaos from below. But it does indicate why he was so concerned about politics.26 While

Schmitt’s judgment was fallible, he relentlessly thought through political phenomena associated

with contemporary events. Unlike Strauss, Schmitt wrote extensively on modern constitutional

theory, parliamentary democracy, international relations, and terrorism.27

Defining Nomos

24
Ibid, pp. 114-115.

25
Ibid, pp. 227ff.

26
I am indebted to remarks of Jacob Taubes on Schmitt for the thoughts in this paragraph. See Taubes’ The
Political Theology of Paul, trans. Dana Hollander (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004) pp. 103-105.

27
See for instance Legality and Legitimacy, The Crisis of Parliamentary Democracy, and Constitutional Theory in
addition to the previously cited Nomos of the Earth and Theory of the Partisan.
 10

Of course just because Schmitt was passionately concerned about politics doesn’t prove that his

analyses are useful in any way. As a prolegomena to the larger questions of the future of world

politics according to Schmitt, it is necessary to examine an aspect of his argument that illustrates

the utility of his analysis for serious thought about the past and future of world affairs. I will

examine his argument on nomos because it is at the heart of his analysis of world politics and

indicates the power of his general analysis.

Schmitt discusses the concept of nomos at great length (unsurprisingly) in his book The Nomos

of the Earth in the International Law of the Jus Publicum Europaeum. His treatment of law in

other works focuses on the narrower concept of legality in contemporary Western regimes.28

Nomos is not simply law or convention for Schmitt. There are two separate but related aspects

of nomos in his account. The first, and the one that he elaborates on at greater length, is the

relationship of appropriation, distribution, and production.29 These phenomena are the “basic

questions of every social order.”30 “Prior to every legal, economic, and social order, prior to

every legal, economic, and social theory are these elementary questions: Where and how was it

appropriated? Where and how was it divided? Where and how was it produced?”31

28
See especially Legality and Legitimacy. In Nomos of the Earth, Schmitt specifically disdains discussion of law as
belonging to a specific legal order. See pp. 71-72 and 82-83.

29
See especially Nomos pp. 324-355 and 67-79. I will pass over Schmitt’s philological discussion of the proper
understanding of nomos, as it is not necessary to understand his argument.

30
Ibid, p. 324.

31
Ibid, pp. 327-328, emphasis Schmitt’s.
 11

Nomos for Schmitt is not a matter of law as produced by legislation or the mere separation of is

and ought. He argues that both the distinction between nomos and physis as well as legal

positivism preclude a proper understanding of nomos.32

Schmitt wants to avoid the philosophical distinction between nature and law as well as

understanding law simply as the prescriptive rules, written or unwritten, of a particular regime.

In his argument these distinctions are too superficial and miss the true meaning of nomos. For

Schmitt, it is critical that nomos not disregard the spatial structure of concrete orders. He avoids

this pitfall by focusing first on the basic act required for any social or political order to come into

being—appropriation.

Appropriation, particularly of land, is necessarily the basis of distribution and production. For

Schmitt, land appropriation “points clearly to the constitution of a radical title.”33 Appropriation

can happen within an order or at the foundation of a new order, but it is always the basic

“constitutive” political act of a state. Positivist legal scholars forget the necessity of “radical

title,” and focus on the already “constituted” order in front of them. They simply assume the

“fact” of a constituted order. But the act of appropriation which lies at the ground of every

political order points to the existence of laws other than those passed by legislative assemblies—

law as the basis of laws, and laws between different orders.34

It is important to emphasize that Schmitt wants us to think about the appropriation of actual

land, hence avoiding an abstract consideration of appropriation. “The nomos by which a tribe, a

32
Ibid, p. 69, compare Strauss’ “The Origin of Natural Right” in Natural Right and History.

33
Ibid, p. 81.

34
Nomos, pp. 82-83.
 12

retinue, or a people becomes settled, i.e. by which it becomes historically situated. . . becomes

visible in the appropriation of land and in the founding of a city or colony.”35 This quote

illustrates Schmitt’s concern with concrete thinking. Nomos becomes visible in the act of

appropriation. Schmitt wishes to avoid simply theoretical reflection on the meaning of nomos.

He wants his readers to think through the matter in a way that avoids abstract considerations. We

must “take heed that the word (nomos-JG) not lose its connection to a historical process—to a

constitutive act of spatial ordering.”36

Once the constitutive act of appropriation has occurred, the next necessary action is distribution

or division. While the original meaning of nomos as appropriation has been generally forgotten

according to Schmitt, “no prominent scholar has forgotten this second meaning of nomos as a

fundamental process of division and distribution, of divisio primaeva.”37 This primeval or

original division follows upon appropriation. Distribution lies at the ground of the constitution

of a people, it is the beginning of law in the ordinary sense as well as property.38 “Abstractly

speaking, nomos is law and property, i.e. the part or share of goods. Concretely speaking, nomos

35
Nomos, p. 70.

36
Nomos, p. 70.

37
Nomos, p. 327. Schmitt cites Hobbes in this context: “And this they well knew of old, who called that nomos, that
is to say distribution, which we call law; and defined justice, by distributing to every man his own.” Leviathan, ch.
XXIV. See also Nomos p. 330, note 14. One might profitably consider ch. 5 of Locke’s Second Treatise of Civil
Government on this matter as well as Thomas Jefferson’s discussion of the origins of property rights in “The
Summary View of the Rights of British North America.”

38
Nomos, p. 345.
 13

is, for example, the chicken in every pot that every peasant living under a good king has on

Sunday. . . .”39

The third meaning of nomos is “the productive work that normally occurs with ownership.”

Division is concerned with distributive justice, the production and management of the third sense

of nomos is closely related to commutative justice. One understands this phenomenon by

considering the “type and manufacture of goods” and the necessary connection with use.40

Schmitt raises the important contemporary question of the unity of the world as illustrative of

his three-fold distinction necessary to understand the meaning of nomos. World unity would

presuppose that “humanity” had appropriated the earth, and hence appropriation would cease.

But it is obvious that no one has appropriated the whole of the earth and established a unified

system of division and production.41 This in large part explains why talking about the “United

Nations” as an effectual body is abstract thinking that has little or no bearing on reality. Since

Schmitt first published Nomos of the Earth in 1950 till today, the type of unified conception of

nomos in the three-fold meaning described above among the nations of the earth that would

make something like the UN a reality has never existed.

This becomes even clearer when we consider the second important aspect of nomos: a unity of

order and orientation.42 For Schmitt, there is not simply an order described by the where and

39
Nomos, p. 327.

40
Nomos, p. 327.

41
Nomos, p. 335.

42
Nomos pp. 42-49, 68, 70; Partisan 69.
 14

how of appropriation, distribution, and production. This order is inextricably coupled with an

equally concrete orientation. Once again appropriation, particularly of land, is critical. The

earth, as opposed to the “free” sea, is “bound” to law in three ways. “She contains law within

herself, as a reward for labor; she manifests law upon herself, as fixed boundaries; and she

sustains law above herself, as a public sign of order. Law is bound to the earth and related to the

earth.”43

The earth is firmly distinguished from the sea in Schmitt’s account. There is no apparent unity

of space and law on the oceans, because the sea cannot be divided by boundaries in the same

way as the land. The sea is open equally to all for fishing, peaceful voyages, and naval

warfare.44 In the ancient world, “On the open sea, there were no limits, no boundaries, no

consecrated sites, no sacred orientations, no law, and no property.”45 After the great sea empires

appeared, a law for the sea did develop by “sea-appropriations.”46 But still land appropriation is

more fundamental to nomos in Schmitt’s argument. “Not only logically, but also historically,

land-appropriation precedes the order that follows from it. It constitutes the original spatial

order, the source of all further concrete order and all further law.”47 Sea-appropriations also

exist, but are secondary to land-appropriations. At most one sees a balance of sea power and

43
Nomos, p. 42.

44
Nomos, pp. 42-43.

45
Nomos, p. 43.

46
Nomos, p. 44.

47
Nomos, p. 48. Also p. 46, “In every case, land-appropriation, both internally and externally, is the primary legal
title that underlies all subsequent law.”
 15

land power based on sea-appropriation vs. land-appropriation.48 Later we will consider the

effects of air power and related technological phenomena on this balance.

Schmitt’s account of nomos can be summarized in this way: nomos involves appropriation,

distribution, and production and becomes manifest in a visible order with a concrete orientation.

To understand a nomos, one looks at the “where and how” of appropriation, distribution, and

production as well as order and orientation. As an example, it is useful to consider the remarks

of Schmitt on the Christian Middle Ages mentioned earlier. The medieval respublica Christiana

was characterized by a unity of imperium and sacerdotium whose chief work was grounded in a

theological understanding of the need to restrain the coming of the Anti-Christ. The order was

oriented toward Catholic Rome. It was grounded on the land-appropriations of migrations of

peoples in the time of the end of the pagan Roman empire.49 It was simply terrestrial or “pre-

global” as it preceded the Age of Discovery.50

Nomos can be understood without waiting for a historicist “absolute moment.” The

manifestation of nomos in actual political reality keeps thinking grounded in the concrete,

oriented toward political reality.

Principal Factors in the Collapse of the Jus Publicum Europaeum

48
Nomos, p. 48. England’s history from at least Elizabeth I to World War II is the story of the balance between her
sea-appropriations and the attempts of the great Continental powers at land-appropriation. See the famous essay
by the English geopolitical thinker Halford Mackinder, “The Geographic Pivot of World History” in his Democratic
Ideas and Reality. Schmitt acknowledged his debt to Mackinder, but also reminds the reader of the difference
between geography and juridical thought. See Nomos p. 37. Schmitt’s particular genius was to combine geography
or geopolitics with juridical thinking.

49
Nomos, pp. 56-62.

50
Nomos, pp. 50-55, 44-49.
 16

An examination of Schmitt’s argument on the collapse of the last (and only) fully developed

nomos of the earth will help us to understand our contemporary situation. The origins and

detailed characteristics of this nomos, characterized by Schmitt as the European public order that

existed between the 16th century and the end of the 19th century, are not necessary for our

purposes. Of more relevance are the reasons for the collapse of this order and what it tells us

about the state of our world today. Schmitt did not think that a new nomos of the earth was fully

formed in either 1950, when The Nomos of the Earth was first released, or 1963, when Theory of

the Partisan was published.51 The factors that led to what Schmitt termed the “collapse” or

“dissolution”52 of the jus publicum Europaeum are just as much realities today as they were in

1950 or 1963.

The chief reason for the end of the European order of public law can be provisionally described

as abstract thinking. It is important to recall the thoroughly Eurocentric character of the jus

publicum Europaeum. “It should be emphasized that Europe and Africa were still considered to

be essentially different spaces in international law.”53 In Schmitt’s account, the jus publicum

Europaeum was characterized first by the distinction between firm land and free sea and then by

a series of distinctions of soil status on firm land. The five different soil statuses are: state

territory; colonies; protectorates; exotic countries with European extraterritoriality; and free

occupiable land.54 European (and American) international law contained different standards for

51
See Nomos pp. 355, 322 and Partisan 68, 95.

52
Nomos, pp. 223, 227.

53
Nomos, p. 218.

54
Nomos pp. 183-184.
 17

interactions between European and non-European nations or peoples.55 The European public

order was based on a balance of territorial states on the continent of Europe and the maritime

British Empire. In the background of the balance between England and the continental powers

were the vast free (for occupation by Europeans) spaces of the New World.56

This is another instance of the intrinsic connection between law and spatial reality for Schmitt.

His description of the Eurocentric character of the jus publicum Europaeum is not chauvinistic

boasting or multicultural criticism. It is instead recognition that this example of nomos, like

every other authentic instance, must be connected to an actual spatial reality. The downfall of

the European public order was precisely its drift toward universal norms with no connection to

an actual spatial reality.57

Schmitt traces the proximate issue associated with the collapse of the European public order to

confused ideas about the status of the Belgian Congo. The problem centered on the ability of

neutral Belgium to acquire territory by effective occupation in Africa and the resultant status of

that territory as neutral or not. The European powers had agreed to the neutrality of Belgium in

1839. The agreement that Belgium should be neutral was part of the attempt of European

international law to “bracket” or limit war. The existence of Belgium and Belgian neutrality was

de facto and de jure a matter of recognition by the European powers. Belgium’s claim to the

55
See James Kent, Commentaries on American Law, (New York: Da Capo Press, 1971, reprint of 1826-1830 text),
lecture IV. p. 75: “In the law of nations as to Europe, the rule is, that men take their national character from the
general character of the country in which they reside, and this rule applies equally to America. But in Asia and
Africa an immiscible character is kept up, and Europeans, trading under the protection of a factory, take their
national character from the establishment under which they live and trade.” On page 1 of lecture I, Kent describes
how America subscribes to European international law as “established among the civilized nations of Europe.”

56
Nomos, p. 140.

57
Nomos, p. 227.
 18

Congo denied recognition by the European powers as the standard and rested instead on effective

occupation. This introduced a lack of clarity in the critical concept of neutrality as it related to

the bracketing of war. The status of Belgium in Europe was dependent upon recognition by the

European powers, but the Belgian colony in the Congo did not depend upon this recognition or

upon the will of the other European powers at all. There was an attempt to deal with the matter

through treaties, but this was not a real solution as it attempted to circumvent the questions by

positivistic legal means unconnected to the actual European (spatial) order. The problem of

whether a neutral state could acquire colonies outside of Europe was not addressed in terms of

the concrete jus publicum Europaeum.58

This division of thought from concrete reality is the definition of nihilism according to Schmitt.

He distinguishes between anarchy, a lack of effective control, and nihilism, which is the

separation of order (concrete spatial reality) from orientation (thought, particularly thought

directing action).59 There is a connection between utopia, “no place,” and nihilism in Schmitt’s

argument. A utopia is nihilistic because it separates order from orientation.60 Anarchy is not as

bad as nihilism, because nihilism is linked to the “destruction of all law.”61 Nihilism destroys all

law because it denies actual spatial reality. Whether a utopian city in speech or the denial of any

possible standard is employed there is nihilism.62

58
Nomos, pp. 223-224.

59
Nomos, pp. 56-57.

60
Nomos, p. 66.

61
Nomos, p. 187.

62
Schmitt describes the refusal of European powers to recognize either side in the Spanish Civil War as nihilism.
This is an example of simply refusing to acknowledge any standard. See Nomos, p. 300.
 19

Schmitt opposes utopian thinking or nihilism because it leads to the destruction of all order. If

orientation is separated from order, the dissolution or collapse of the order will follow. The

apparently insignificant failure of the European powers to orient their juridical thought to

maintaining the jus publicum Europaeum in the case of the Congo led to the catastrophic failure

of the system of European public law.

In itself, the situation with the Congo was not so much a cause as a symptom of the nihilism of

European juridical thought. Schmitt argues that “European powers and jurists of European

international law not only had ceased to be conscious of the spatial presuppositions of their own

international law, but had lost any political instinct, any common power to maintain their own

spatial structure and the bracketing of war.”63 A loss of conscious consideration of the reality of

the European order accompanied by a lack of instinct and common power was fatal to the

maintenance of the jus publicum Europaeum. These phenomena dominated European thought

until the final nails were placed in the European order of public law after World War I.

Schmitt identifies two other important failures to think through consciously the necessary

means of perpetuating the European order that are relevant to our discussion. The first was the

failure to integrate the growing power of the United States. Schmitt argues that the United

States, in the period between 1890 and up to 1939, oscillated between isolation and humanitarian

intervention.64 America in this time period had a tremendous influence through both presence

and absence.65 Although officially absent after 1919, America was effectively present as a great

63
Nomos, p. 224.

64
Nomos, p. 227.

65
Nomos, p. 294.
 20

power effecting European and world affairs.66 The jus publicum Europaeum never found a place

for America in its juridical system. This caused a lack of balance or equilibrium in the Western

system of world politics. If America had been either “in” or “out” of the European order there

would not have been a problem. But America as a great power that was intermittently officially

involved and always a factor affecting the European spatial order led to a disunity of order and

orientation.

A concrete example of this problem was the relationship of the League of Nations to the

Monroe Doctrine. The Charter of the League specifically “recognized” the Monroe Doctrine as

“not incompatible” with the Charter. In effect this was a tacit denial of the universal character of

the provisions in the Charter.67 The League did not embody a coherent nomos as a consequence.

The concrete order of the League’s universal system was undermined by this exception. The

League hence was unable to solve what Schmitt terms “the most important problem, namely the

relationship between Europe and the Western Hemisphere.”68

The failure of the United States to integrate into the Eurocentric order of public law did not

cause the failure of the League or the lack of a coherent succeeding nomos to the jus publicum

Europaeum. Once again, this was more of a symptom of an overarching problem—the

prevalence of abstract thinking.

The next symptom of this failure was the problem of recognition of states outside the European

order. New states obtained legal/diplomatic recognition with no thought about their actual

66
Nomos, p. 251.

67
Nomos, p. 253.

68
Nomos, p. 254.
 21

relation to the jus publicum Europaeum.69 This was an issue because it separated recognition or

legal “admission” into the community of international law from the actual orientation of the state

in question. The distinction between European civilization and semi-barbaric or barbaric

behavior became “juridically insignificant.” The real, concrete nomos of European international

law was replaced by “a disorganized mass. . . lacking any spatial or spiritual consciousness of

what they once had had in common, a chaos of reputedly equal and equally sovereign states. .

.for which not even the concept of ‘civilization’ could provide any concrete homogeneity.”70

The jus publicum Europaeum dissolved into nihilism due to the separation of the concrete order

from juridical thought.

The failure to think concretely, which led to adopting abstract or merely formal criteria for

admission into the international order, brought about the collapse of the European international

juridical system. The same abstract thinking was to prevent the emergence of a new humane,

coherent nomos in the aftermath of World War I. “The essential cause of the failure of the

League was that it lacked any decision with respect to, or even any idea of a spatial order.”71

The Eurocentric order of public law had failed because of contradictory or incoherent ideas

about the unity of order and orientation in spatial reality. The ideas behind the League were not

contradictory in the same way. In this case, as Schmitt indicates in the quote above, there was a

consistent decision to ignore the relation of order and orientation altogether. The League was an

69
Nomos, p. 233.

70
Nomos, p. 234. This same problem can be seen in the farce routinely enacted in the United Nations, where
nations like North Korea and Syria are treated as if they actually belong to the same international legal system as
the US, Great Britain, and France.

71
Nomos, p. 243.
 22

attempt to bracket war through universal norms agreed to by the powers of the world. But there

was no agreement to what these norms actually meant in relation to a spatial order.

Three examples demonstrate this problem. First, there was no agreement over the actual

territorial status quo. The abstract guarantee of territorial integrity conflicted with the abstract

right of “peoples”72 to self-determination. Second, both the United States and the Soviet Union

were absent.73 Third, the two leading European powers, Great Britain and France, had radically

different conceptions of the status quo. Great Britain was primarily interested in her maritime

empire, and hence was relatively easy-going about what happened on the continent. France on

the other hand was very concerned to limit any territorial changes to the immediate post World

War I settlement.74 In short, the European international order was simply not replaced by

another actual order.

The situation in the wake of the dissolution of the jus publicum Europaeum was not anarchy

though. It was, and is, nihilism. No unity of order and orientation has replaced the old global

nomos. Instead we have a system where abstract norms proliferate, but they have no or at best

little bearing on the concrete world situation.

An Evolution of the Nihilistic Lack of Nomos: The Figure of the Partisan

72
This is a case of abstractions within abstractions. The question of what a people is was never addressed by the
League, or by Woodrow Wilson, the leading proponent of the idea of the self-determination for all peoples. This is
an abstract imbecility that has been plaguing world politics since 1919—most recently illustrated by the newly
minted “Kosovar” people getting their own state.

73
It is important to note that this absence was only official on the part of the both the US and the USSR. Schmitt
points out that the League submitted to pressure from both the US and USSR. See Nomos, p. 258.

74
Nomos, p. 245.
 23

In 1955, Schmitt published a short corollary essay to his much longer Nomos of the Earth. This

short piece, “The New Nomos of the Earth,” contains a brief and very clear outline of his views

about what sort of world order might be emerging. The earlier jus publicum Europaeum, based

on a balance between maritime England and the continental powers of Europe, had dissolved.

The development of modern technology, particularly air power, had called into question the very

possibility of a nomos based on a balance between land and sea.75 The old Eurocentric order had

been replaced by the division between East and West. But the concepts of East and West are

fluid or relative. The fact is that in the Cold War a great sea power, the United States, faced a

great land power, the Soviet Union. But neither nation was geographically part of the old

Europe. 76 This means that in the full sense a resurrection of the jus publicum Europaeum in its

entirety was not possible.

Schmitt did think that a structure relying on a balance between land and sea power was

possible. This could happen if the United States took the part of England. Instead of balancing

the continental powers of Europe, the United States would be the “balancer” for the entire

world.77 Schmitt also briefly outlines two other alternatives. If either the United States or the

Soviet Union won the Cold War, the victor could appropriate the whole world and establish a

nomos according to their own plans. The third possibility was the emergence of several

75
Nomos, p. 354. “The New Nomos of the Earth” is included as an appendix to The Nomos of the Earth on pp. 351-
355.

76
Nomos, p. 353.

77
See Mackinder’s previously cited Democratic Ideals and Reality and “The Geographical Pivot of History” as well
as Hans Morgenthau’s Politics Among Nations for other views of the role of a “balancer” in world politics. Schmitt
is here very close to Mackinder’s analysis.
 24

different independent blocs or “Grossraume” that could check each other and hence constitute a

balance.78

By 1963, with the publication of Theory of the Partisan, Schmitt was no longer discussing these

alternatives.79 He described this work as an “intermediate commentary” on the concept of the

political because it raised the question of the distinction between friend and enemy so important

to the text of that name.80 At the end of Theory of the Partisan, Schmitt tells us that “the theory

of the partisan flows into the question of the concept of the political, into the question of the real

enemy and of a new nomos of the earth.”81 Schmitt’s thoughts on the emerging nomos of the

earth had come to be dominated by the question of the partisan rather than the possibilities of

superpower dominance, the US as global maritime balancer, or the emergence of several

independent political blocs that could balance one another.

The dominance of the partisan in the question of the friend/enemy distinction and the emerging

nomos of the earth is of tremendous importance. If the partisan is a central figure, no new nomos

of the earth can come into being. Partisans have always been dependent upon an outside

“regular” power. But until very recently the partisan had been telluric, interested in defending

78
Nomos, pp. 354-355. Schmitt here omits the possibility of a simple “devolution” into chaos. This is of interest
because of his concern with order. The danger of chaos in the emerging world order is discussed at length in
Robert Kaplan’s The Coming Anarchy.

79
The figure of the contemporary partisan is basically equivalent to the more common term “terrorist.” This will
become more evident as we examine the characteristics of the modern partisan.

80
“Foreword” to Theory of the Partisan. See Schmitt’s 1932 work The Concept of the Political.

81
Partisan, p. 95.
 25

his home soil against an invader.82 Schmitt understood clearly that the contemporary partisan is

always dependent upon an “interested third party” in a different, more intense manner than

earlier partisan movements. 83 This is so because of the dependence of the partisan upon the

latest military technology and also because of the internationalist character of the contemporary

partisan. By 1963, Schmitt was able to see that partisan movements had “come under

international and supranational control . . . .” The partisan had ceased to be a patriotic defender

of home and hearth. Instead he became “a manipulable tool of global revolutionary

aggressivity.”84

The movement toward “global revolutionary aggressivity” was prompted especially by the

advent of Leninism according to Schmitt. Lenin adopted and radicalized Clausewitz’s dictum

that war is the continuation of politics by other means. Lenin took this argument and applied it

to revolutionary class warfare. Partisan warfare for Lenin was “an inevitable form of struggle,” a

useful tool along with other legal and illegal means to bring about the liberation of the

proletariat.85 It is critical to note that the partisan became central to the “absolute enmity” in the

struggle between communists and the bourgeoisie. This absolute character entails that there be

absolutely no limits placed on the elimination of the enemy. The irregular partisan becomes a

82
Partisan, pp. 74, 20-22. The classic example used by Schmitt is the Spanish partisan in the “little war” with
Napoleon. See Partisan pp. 3-8.

83
Partisan, p. 75, emphasis in text. Earlier partisans, such as the Spanish guerillas fighting Napoleon, were
dependent upon an interested third party for support too. But the much more limited goals of the fundamentally
telluric (conservative?) partisan was not serving universalist ideological goals and the technology required was
much less advanced and easier to obtain.

84
Partisan, p. 74.

85
Partisan, p.50. The quote is from Lenin. See note 64 on p. 50 and note 66 on p. 51 of Partisan.
 26

key figure in Leninism’s attack on the (regular) capitalist order.86 The older concept of limited

warfare associated with the jus publicum Europaeum was simply discarded by this turn to

absolute enmity. The limited wars between sovereign modern states of the jus publicum

Europaeum gave way to the unlimited wars of revolutionary parties.87

The modern partisan is a figure dominated by internationalist ideology and dependent upon

“regular” states for technology to fight. But this figure calls into question the “interested third

party” while being dependent on the regular/state capabilities of their ally. The irregularity of

the partisan is a threat to the regular state order on which it depends.88 The example of General

Salan and the OAS is pertinent here. Salan became an irregular partisan against his regular state

out of a concern to preserve Algeria for his state against the FLN partisan movement! The

irregular partisan can only coexist in an uneasy truce with regular states. It is obvious that

partisan movements threaten the states they officially claim to oppose, but it is important to

recognize that the centrality of the partisan in the contemporary world calls into question all

regular state orders.89

The partisan is a simply negative force in his relation to nomos. His orientation is the

destruction of an existing order. Schmitt describes the partisan as being unable to control the

86
Partisan, p. 52.

87
Partisan, p.49. See also Nomos pp. 152-171 for a discussion of the transformation of Medieval War to the non-
discriminatory state wars of the jus publicum Europaeum.

88
By “regular state order” I mean the modern sovereign nation state.

89
Partisan, pp. 61-67. Also consider Saudi Arabia’s crackdown on Islamist terrorism at home while sponsoring it
abroad, as well as the unsuccessful attempts of terrorists to become regular. It is helpful to think about the recent
example of Yasser Arafat.
 27

forces unleashed by his way of war.90 His methodology is “any tool in a fight” in a conflict of

absolute enmity with the enemy. Absolute enmity demands the destruction of all bearers of

opposing values.91 No limitation or “bracketing” of war is possible for the modern partisan.92 In

unlimited warfare based on absolute enmity, the only “final solution” is the extermination of the

enemy. The partisan cannot build a nomos. The “irregular” partisan dedicated to the destruction

of an opposing regular order cannot simply then become the builder of a coherent unity of order

and orientation.

Schmitt helps clarify this issue by pointing out that the partisan is not only irregular but private,

opposed to the public order. The principal target of the modern partisan irregular fighter is the

regular uniformed soldier who bears arms openly.93 International legal conventions run into

contradictions in attempts to legalize/regularize the partisan in terms of his rights as a combatant

and prisoner of war on the one hand while demanding respect for the rights of the occupying

power on the other.94 On the one hand, an occupying military power has clear rights in

international law to the obedience of the citizenry and the cooperation of civil servants and

90
Partisan, p.82. Schmitt relates the term “Acheron” to the partisan on pp 48 and 82. The forces of the
underworld associated with the partisan are given free rein in the Leninist (and Islamist) theories of partisan
activity. They are not calculable. Osama Bin Laden apparently thought America would retreat altogether from the
Middle East after 9/11. He thought that one can control the uncontrollable or “acherontic” force utilized by the
partisan.

91
Partisan, pp. 78, 94-95.

92
Once again, the Islamist terrorist movement provides us with a good example. The terrorists flying into the
World Trade Center on 9/11 were unconcerned about killing Muslims at work in the WTC. The traditional Islamic
distinction between Muslims in the House of Peace (Dar el Islam) and infidels in the House of War (Dar el Harb)
breaks down in the face of Islamist partisan warfare.

93
Partisan, p. 16.

94
Partisan, p. 17.
 28

police in the occupied territory. On the other hand, the partisan is granted rights as a combatant.

One soon runs into absurdities such as the right of an occupying power to prosecute partisans as

criminals with the rights of partisans to resist as long as they have “respectable motives” when

this logic is followed.95 Once again we find ourselves confronting nihilism in the guise of

universal norms. Regulations that attempt to legalize the illegal while still maintaining it is

illegal embody a wholesale denial of order and orientation.

The chaos that comes with the centrality of the partisan is also related to a transformation in

terms of the spatial context. This seems strange, because of course the partisan does not

transform geography. Partisans are instead notorious for taking advantage of opportunities

offered by geography.96 But Schmitt clearly demonstrates how the partisan radically changes the

spatial context of warfare. The partisan denies the existence of a “front” where uniformed

soldiers clearly distinguished from civilians “behind the lines” confront each other. The partisan

forces his opponent to fight away from a clearly demarcated battle area. This is related to the

blurring of the distinction between the public and private in the mode of warfare embraced by the

partisan. The uniformed soldier represents the public sphere, the partisan usually appears to be a

peaceful citizen or perhaps even wears the uniform in public of an ally. The partisan qua

partisan subverts the public order by bearing arms surreptitiously. “From an underground lair,

95
Partisan, pp. 23-27. Schmitt is here referring to the evolution of the Hague and Geneva conventions through
1949. The more precise terms of the 1907 Hague Convention are thrown into contradiction by the Geneva
Conventions attempt to regularize/legalize irregular warfare while at the same time declaring it be always irregular
and illegal. See also p. 37, especially note 51.

96
Here one thinks of the Viet Minh and later Viet Cong using the jungle or contemporary “insurgents” in Iraq and
Afghanistan taking advantage of the need for heavy road traffic in relatively open terrain to attack vehicles with
IED’s.
 29

the partisan disturbs the conventional, regular play of forces on the open stage.”97 Schmitt

compares the partisans effect on the spatial dimension of war to the introduction of the

submarine in World War I. Submarine warfare also opened “an unexpected space unknown to

the former space of sea war.”98

A closely related phenomenon to the transformation of the spatial aspect of warfare is the

partisan’s destruction of social forms or forces. We see here again a purely negative activity that

destroys an existing order. The irregular warfare of the partisan often targets civil servants and

government services. Sometimes, as with the Viet Cong in South Vietnam, an entire parallel

(irregular) government is set up in defiance of the regular state apparatus. In this way an entire

civilian population can be held hostage and terrorism can affect whole populations for long

periods of time rather than with merely sporadic incidents. The partisan will attack the regular

state structure to provoke retaliation and hope that non-combatants will be targeted to generate

further enmity and disorder. In the resulting acherontic disorder, a blurring of legality and

legitimacy occurs.99

The lack of ability to distinguish between legality and legitimacy is an important characteristic

of the era dominated by the partisan. The partisan claims to adhere to a standard that is truly

legitimate in the face of the legality of an existing order. Every legal order denies that it

97
Partisan, p. 70, see 69.

98
Partisan, p. 71.

99
Partisan, pp. 72-74, see especially note 83. Here Schmitt cites the fascinating work by Margret Boveri, Treason
in the Twentieth Century. Boveri examines the cases of men like Henri Petain and the Norwegian Quisling to
illustrate the consequences of setting aside legality (i.e. Petain’s rule was perfectly legal) in favor of legitimacy
(treating his as a traitor because of his subservience to the hated and hateful Nazis). See also F.J. Veale’s brilliant
Advance to Barbarism.
 30

embodies a distinction between the legal and legitimate or between law and right. If a difference

between the law of a state and right is admitted, the regime is illegitimate.100

The modern partisan, whether he claims to serve the liberation of the proletariat or the

establishment of the Koran as civil law, is always making a claim against the legitimacy of the

existing order. This denial of legitimacy is related to the absolute enmity toward those who hold

different values.101 The combination of absolute enmity and increasing technological power of

mass destruction does not bode well for the limiting or bracketing of warfare and the promotion

of a humane, decent order. 102 What Schmitt terms the “acherontic” character of the modern

partisan is inherently antinomian in the deepest sense of nomos.

Schmitt’s Defect-and Mine Too

I maintain that Schmitt’s discussion of nomos and his description of events connected to the

collapse of the jus publicum Europaeum and the emergence of the partisan as a dominant figure

in contemporary politics is tremendously helpful to us. Schmitt’s concrete considerations are far

more intelligent than the theoretical, abstract dogmas of modern historicism. Contemporary

international law is mired in stupid generalizations that bear no relation to reality. The German

juridical thinker who links geography, juridical thought, technology, and theology to a unity of

100
Meditation on Lincoln’s claim that the American legal/constitutional order should always strive to attain the
principles of the Declaration (“Be ye therefore perfect as your father in heaven is perfect”) and hence that the
regime is never entirely legitimate can only make sense in light of the argument of his First Inaugural.

101
The use of the term “values” (werte) is problematic, but it is the term Schmitt uses. I believe this points to a
deep problem in his thought and the ultimate superiority of Leo Strauss as a thinker. See “The Distinction Between
Facts and Values” (ch. 2) in Natural Right and History and the conclusion of this paper.

102
Partisan, pp. 94-95. Official Iranian statements regarding the elimination of Israel by nuclear attack are relevant
here. Iran is a partisan or irregular state. This is indicated by the fact that Iran claims to be in a permanent state of
Islamic revolution. A terrorist state will use terrorism and cannot coexist with a regular state.
 31

order and orientation in nomos has provided us with a powerful framework in which to

understand contemporary international politics.

In this I believe that Schmitt was superior to his fellow German thinker Leo Strauss. Strauss’

occasional comments on politics do not provide much explicit guidance for how to think about

the contemporary world.103

But as I mention above, Strauss was the greater thinker. The great defect of Schmitt was that he

did not ask the “what is” question about the good. He was clearly concerned with the collapse of

the jus publicum Europaeum and its great accomplishment, the bracketing or limitation of war.

This is a laudable concern. Unfortunately, the great jurist does not seek to understand the ground

of why it is good to be humane and decent. I believe that Schmitt’s failure to understand the evil

of Nazism in the 1930’s was linked to his overriding concern with order. Since he did not seek

to understand the good in itself, he did not see that order and decency do not always go together.

I think he learned his lesson through experience.104 But this experience did not occasion a turn

toward the philosophic enterprise that Strauss pursued.

The defect of this paper is that it does not systematically address the other strain of Schmitt’s

thought. Above I argued that intelligent Straussians like Heinrich Meier and Harry Neumann

correctly describe Schmitt as a political theologian but do not address the heart of his juridical

103
But at least one student of Strauss has overcome this problem. See Thomas G. West’s Vindicating the
Founders. This book is a brilliant examination of the relationship between ideas and concrete political practice.
Less brilliant but still helpful in this regard is R.J. Pestritto’s Founding the Criminal Law. Pestritto’s book has the
great virtue of linking theory to practice in concrete thought. Unfortunately he does not go to the root of the
theoretical tension between what he describes as Enlightenment vs. more traditional views of punishment in the
American Founding.

104
It seems to me that Schmitt’s book The Leviathan in the State Theory of Thomas Hobbes, written in the late
1930’s, is a veiled but powerful attack on Nazi worship of the state.
 32

thought. A complete understanding of Schmitt is I think only possible if one examines these two

strains of thought in one project.

Provisionally I believe that a study of Schmitt’s book on Hobbes coupled with an examination

of his juridical thought as found especially in The Nomos of the Earth and Theory of the Partisan

can provide a grasp of Schmitt as a thinker. I tentatively maintain that the two poles of Schmitt’s

thought are political theology understood as a submission to a God beyond good and evil and

nomos as a unity of order and orientation embodying humane, decent values.