War in the horizon of “The Concept of the Political” (C. Schmitt) and “The Impotence of Politics”(H. Hofmeister)

Abstract

Aim. To conduct a comparative analysis of two representations of war defined within two different paradigms of the political; representative and characteristic examples of which are the concept of a “law-limited” war by C. Schmitt and the philosophical concept of war as the “impotence of politics” by H. Hofmeister.

Methodology. The main content of the study is the formation of the perspective representation of war in two paradigms of the political; the essential and different characteristics of war for each concept are identified, and further combined into a conceptual unity according to the principles set by the perspective.

Results. The analysis has revealed the absence of a general representation of war and the difference in the content of the two concepts of war. The representation of war in the liberal paradigm of the political, according to the principles of liberal metaphysics, cannot be conceptualized, but represents a number of discourses (on “human nature”, “violence”, “justice”, etc.), normatively reduced to the concept of “unity” according to the imperatives of liberal ideology. The necessity of presenting war as a police operation (peacekeeping mission) is proved; it provides rationale to the impossibility of distinguishing between “internal” and “external” in the situation of exclusion of the sovereign (and sovereign decision) in the universal and global perspective of the reality representation in the liberal paradigm of the political.

Research implications. As a result of the research conducted, it was concluded that the “new war” (“permanent”, “total”, “fair”, “asymmetric”), constituted in the horizon of understanding politics as global governance and fundamentally denying recognition of the “legitimate enemy”, must be inherently “total” (according to modern terminology it is “hybrid”) war.