Carl Schmitt, The Partisan

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hilosophy.com: Carl Schmitt: the partisan

Philosophy.Com'An aphorism, properly stamped and molded, has not been "deciphered" when it hassimply been read; rather one has then to begin its interpretation, for which is requiredan art of interpretation.' -- Nietzsche, On the Genealogy of Morals

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June 12, 2006

Carl Schmitt: the partisan

How does Carl Schmitt's theory of the partisan inform us about what is happening today in the

war on terror? It would appear that the conventional, classical concepts of war and peace, whicare based on the contained European war of the nineteenth century, with the implication of

relative and containable enmity, does not make sense of what is happening in the Middle East.

The war on terror is quite different. If this is a different conception of war to the standard one

war between nation states, then what kind of war is it? There is a week long symposium on

Schmitt's theory of the partisan going over at Long Sunday, and this post is a contribution to it

If we interpret the theory of the 'partisan' as a development of Schmitt's theory of the political,

can we use the political category of the partisan to make sense of the Islamic resistance to the

attempt by the US to establish its hegemony in the Middle East; or the Palestinian resistance to

Israel's attempt to expand its borders through settlements in the Occupied Territories. Can

Schmitt's work help us deconstruct the standard use of 'terrorist' to describe all these diverse

forms of insurgencies? If so how does the theory of the partisan change the way we understand

the political as a friend/enemy antithesis (understood in an existential, concrete sense)?

Schmitt's text starts in an interesting place, with the homegrown Spanish resistance to the

French occupation of Spain by Napolean at the beginning of the 19th century. The Spanish

Guerrilla War of 1808 was the first in which the partisan as guerrillero's dared to wage irregula

war against the first regular modern army. The partisan's 'real space of combat is in the rear of

the enemy's front line, where he harasses the transportation and supplies, but also because he

is more or less protected and concealed by the local people in the occupied zone. ' Hence the

historical link to the Vietnamese resistance to the US occupation of Vietnam in the 20th centur

which legitimated the partisan in the name of national defense. He says that the theory of the

le:///C|/Documents%20and%20Settings/Christian/Mis%.../Carl%20Schmitt/Carl%20Schmitt,%20The%20partisan.htm (1 of 4)02/05/2008 03:07:02 p.m.

http://www.sauer-thompson.com/archives/philosophy/2006/06/mutations_in_ci.html

http://www.sauer-thompson.com/philosophy/

http://www.sauer-thompson.com/archives/philosophy/2006/06/post_57.html

http://www.msupress.msu.edu/journals/cr/schmitt.pdf

http://www.long-sunday.net/long_sunday/carl_schmitt/index.html

http://www.long-sunday.net/long_sunday/carl_schmitt/index.html

http://www.msupress.msu.edu/journals/cr/schmitt.pdf

http://www.sauer-thompson.com/archives/philosophy/2006/06/post_57.html

http://www.sauer-thompson.com/philosophy/

http://www.sauer-thompson.com/archives/philosophy/2006/06/mutations_in_ci.html




partisan leads into the concept of the political, in the question concerning the real enemy and a

new nomos of the

earth.

This history gives us the contrast between two sorts of partisans: namely, 'the defensive-

autochthonous defender of home and the aggressive international revolutionary

activist' (Lenin). Schmitt says that it was Stalin who successfully linked the strong potential fornational and local resistance---the essentially defensive, telluric power of patriotic self-defense

against a foreign conqueror---with the aggressive nature of the international communist world

revolution. The connection of these two heterogeneous forces dominates partisan struggle

around the world today.

Schmitt argues that, as a result 'new spaces of/for war emerged in the process, and new

concepts of warfare were developed along with a new doctrine of war and politics.' The

irregular fighters as partisan challenges the classic distinctions of the statist foundation of warfare: those between war and peace, combatants and non-combatants, enemy and criminal

presupposed when war is understood to be conducted between states by regular armies of state

between standard-bearers of a jus belli who respect each other at war as enemies and do not

treat one another as criminals. On this statist understanding a peace treaty becomes possible

and even remains the normal, mutually accepted end of war.

The modern partisan has turned away from the conventional enmity of the contained war and

given himself up to an other---the real---enmity that rises through terror and counter-terror, u

to annihilation. However, it took a long time before the new concepts of warfare and politics

were developed, and a large section of Schmitt's article is devoted to tracing this development.

The key figure in terms of developing a partisan theory of the formula of war as the continuatio

of politics by other means is Mao Tse-tung, not Lenin.

Schmitt says that Mao gives us a conceptual formation that is as simple as it is effective:

War finds its meaning in enmity. Because it is the continuation of politics,

politics too always involves an element of enmity, at least potentially; and if

peace contains within itself the possibility of war.....peace too contains a moment

of potential enmity. [The core of] Maoâ ™s political theory...lies in partisanship,

whose essential characteristic today is real enmity. Leninâ ™s bolshevik theory

recognizes and acclaims the partisan. But in comparison to the concrete telluric

reality of the Chinese partisan, Lenin has something abstract and intellectual

[abstrak-intellektuelles] in his definition of the enemy.





Schmitt says that this geneology of partisan opens up four different aspects: the aspect of space

then the shattering of social structures, further the interconnectedness with the world-political

context, and finally the technical-industrial aspect It is these aspects that provide the link to th

contemporary Middle East and help disclose the war that the US is fighting.

In a partisan battle a complexly structured new space of action emerges because the partisan

does not fight on an open field of battle nor on the same plane of open frontal war. Schmitt say

'Rather, he forces his enemy into another space. From underground, he disturbs the

conventional and regular game on the open stage. On the basis of his irregularity, he alters

dimensions not only of tactical, but of strategic operations of the regular army.'

The shattering of social structures is illustrated by the French in Indochina from 1946 to 1956

when their colonial regime in this region fell apart. Schmitt says that this 'instance may sufficeto remind us that the partisan, suppressed by the military mind of the nineteenth century,

quite suddenly moved into the center of a new kind of warfare whose sense and purpose was

the destruction of the existing social order.'

The third aspect, the interconnectedness with world-political fronts and contexts, arises Schmi

saysbecause the partisan is always dependent in some way, as an irregular fighter, on a regular

power, on an interested third party:

The powerful third party delivers not only weapons and munitions, money,

material assistance, and medicines of every description, he offers also the sort of

political recognition of which the irregularly fighting partisan is in need, in

order to avoid falling like the thief and the pirate into the unpolitical, which

means here the criminal sphere.

In the longer view of things the irregular must legitimize itself through the regular, and for thisonly two possibilities stand open: recognition by an existing regular, or establishment of a new

regularity by its own force.

The partisan too participates in the fourth aspect, which is the development of modern

technology and its science as both the partisan and his opponents both keep step with the rapid

development of modern technology and its form of science. The partisan adapts to the new

technical-industrial environment, learning how to make use of the new means, and so develop





new, form of the partisan---the industrial partisan.

It is these four aspects that can be used to understand what is happening in the Middle East.

Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at June 12, 2006 10:51 AM | TrackBack

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