6- Federations WITHOUT Nation- State: The problem of war

Let's try to imagine how can we explain modern political problems with past point of view. If we asked Thucydides to describe Cyprus ethnic conflict, he would probably had a very much power-oriented explanation. He would tell us that there is not conflict at all. Through the past-perspective glasses Cyprus is formed by two colonies, one of Athene and the other of Ankara organized in a kind of Koinon of ethnic Greeks and ethnic Turkish with the uncommon divided city of Nicosia as most powerful. With no war, balance of power (none is too big) and with no mutual interference, there is not conflict.

So why do Greeks need a Koinon if they don't have the problems of Nation- State?

I don't know very much of Greek history but I am pretty sure that they had a lot of conflicts. The Copenhagen Polis Center identify around a thousand polis in Ancient Greek. A thousand city states politically independent!  If we follow Hobbes the situation may seem the state of nature:

"In such condition, there is no place for industry; because the fruit thereof is uncertain: and consequently no culture of the earth; no navigation, nor use of the commodities that may be imported by sea; no commodious building; no instruments of moving, and removing, such things as require much force; no knowledge of the face of the earth; no account of time; no arts; no letters; no society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man, solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."

                                         

Fortunately, this was not the case of Greek cities. Even in an anarchic situation were no polis was able to dominate other we don't have such an anomic situation as described by Hobbes where no rule seems to prevail. Other than competing units Greek city-states were also a thousand units exchanging goods, sharing a territory, believing in the same gods, being in close contact, facing many common problems and challenges. They were very prosperous economically and culturally.

All this prosperity must have been supported by working rules and sophisticated methods to mitigate the occurrence and destructibility of war. We know that polis respected a kind of customary international law that helped to mitigate conflict (the action of ambassadors, war should stop while a polis has religious festivities, arbitration, etc.).

Even in time of war Greeks had decent rules for it. In Franchi (2020) we read that the opplitic war was characterized by a well defined code of behavior such as declare war before the first attack, respect the religious festivities, the limitation of the weapons that can be used, etc. War may well look like a half way between the Olympic Games and a violent clash.

We also know that polis made peace agreements, military leagues, epimachies, sympoliteia, etc. At times some of them become powerful and control other small polis consolidating a local power (hegemonic symmachia, hegemonic cities) but the final effect seems to be similar to the one analyzed by Waltz (1987): a thousand political units in an anarchic environment creates a potential for conflict and war with security being the main concern of every unit. A system as such tends a balance of power where there is an equillibrium and war occasions tend to decrease.

Finally we have Koinon. At the conference on Federalism and Conflict Resolution in Ancient Greek the  30th April 2021 Harter assure that polis belonging to the same koinon do enter in war between each other. If this is so, Koinon was a marvelous institution and very much efficient in controlling violent conflict. Because even if we have a thousand poleis, we have a much smaller number of Koinon and the potential of war decreases tremendously. 

I agree with Ager (2015) that federations in Ancient Greek offered institutions to create war-free areas, but they don't necessarily decrease every type of conflict, but violent ones. Ancient Greeks need Koinon to help to decrease the amount and destructibility of war. 

Bibliografia

Ager, S. (2015) “Peaceful conflict resolution in the world of the federal states” in Hans Beck and Peter Funke “Federalism in Greek Antiquity” Chapter 26 Edited by Cambridge University Press

Franchi, E. (2020) “Memory Studies e Antropologia del conflitto. Prospettive interdisciplinari sulla guerra nel mondo antico” Riv. Antologia Militare. Nro 1 2020 Fascicolo 2 Giugno 2020 Storia Militare. Roma: Società Italiana di Storia Militare.

Hobbes “Leviathan” XIII, 9. Extracted online edition.

Waltz, K. (1987) “Teoria della politica internazionale” Bologna: Il Mulino