B. Division of Politics and War

B. Division of Politics and War

(1) The Emergence of Non-violent Politics

 

Politics is a continuation of war. At the same time, politics and war are different. That is, "canonical politics" and "violent war" are clearly different. Although they maintain the same essence of survival struggle as one continuous entity, what is the reason for politics and war being differentiated in this way? Simply put, it is as follows:

 

         [Ch.2.10] (Politics) Cooperation within the organization is necessary for war outside the (political) organization and internal cohesion activities are (canonical) politics.

 

A macro-level example is a national activity that increases military spending and encourages the public to participate in the defense against external invasion, while a micro-level example is the protection of guild members from outsiders by the merchant guild and the prohibition of unfair competition among guild members. The defense against external invasion and the protection of guild members from outsiders are related to war, while encouraging the public to participate in the defense and prohibiting unfair competition among guild members are related to cooperation (politics).

 

Applying this relationship between violent wars and canonical politics to the case of a nation, it can be more specifically explained as follows in the contents of a table.

 

[Tab.2.3] The duality of War and Politics

War & Politics	Purpose of Activity	Standards	Approach	Classification of Activity
㉠ War	Use of armed capacity	The use of military power to subjugate an uncompromising opponent	External activity	The purpose of the existence of an organization (state)
㉡ Politics	Strengthening of armed capacity	Gathering power to prepare and enhance military power	Internal activity	Function and structure of an organization (state)

 

The question "Why are politics and war separated?" is equivalent to "Why does nonviolent canonical politics arise from the necessity of violent war?" The answer lies in the fact that only by having a nonviolent relationship of organizational cooperation between combatants can strong violent capacities be created for war. This is achieved by strengthening the cohesion of people and organizing and developing the war capability. This is the process of canonical politics.

 

The historical examples of defeat in war due to lack of political cohesion can be easily found. When the Romans tried to conquer Britannia, which is now part of the UK, for 40 years, the Britons were brave but lacked political leadership and unity, which eventually led to their successive conquests. The same was true for Attila's Hun Empire. Attila was a skilled strategist who conquered the northern and eastern parts of Europe inhabited by the Germanic and Slavic peoples, and advanced towards the Eastern Roman Empire. He killed the King Teodoric I of the Visigoths in 450, and was powerful enough to defeat the ancient city of Aquileia with deep Roman roots in 452. However, due to the lack of a well-established political system to determine the succession of Attila's empire, the conflict over the throne among his sons broke out after his death, and the Hun Empire declined within just 2-3 years.

 

As stated in [Tab.2.3], the purpose of war activities is the use of armed capacity, while the purpose of political activities is the strengthening of armed capacity. However, it is not always the case that war means actually exploding bombs and killing people. Sometimes, just threatening can also be closer to war than politics. In that case, the distinction between war and politics becomes ambiguous again. To supplement this, a clearer criterion can be added. That is, if it is an activity that uses (even without direct use) armed capacity to subdue an adversary, it can be considered war, and if it is an activity to consolidate power to increase strength, it can be considered politics. On the other hand, war can be called "external activity" in the sense that it is an activity by an organization targeting political actors outside the organization, and politics can be called "internal activity" in the sense that it is an activity of mutual interaction among subjects inside the organization. War as an external activity is the driving force that gives birth to and establishes organizations, while politics as an internal activity is concretely determined according to the functions and structure of the organization.

 

Politics is an activity that strengthens the armed capacity, so the weakening of political power leads to a long-term weakening of armed capacity. The failure of the Baekje restoration movement caused by Baekje nobles in the domestic and Japan after the collapse of Baekje was due to the failure of political coherence. During the late 9th century, when the political power of Queen Jinseong was collapsing, the unified Silla also weakened its central government's armed capacity, and it was unable to suppress the rebellion of the local lords. As a result, the Later Three Kingdoms appeared. During the early stages of the Crusades in Europe, when they started their expedition to the eastern Islamic world, the Muslim army suffered defeat in the battle against the Crusaders and lost Jerusalem, but the reason for this was the decisive cause that the ruling power in the Islamic world was divided and politically weakened at that time.