By David Andreas Steinacker

INTRODUCTION | The state, violence and the power of society

It is a widely understood view that the modern state rests on its monopolisation of violence. This classical thesis of Social Science benefits and appears to confirm that largely uncontested fact, which is that governments usually control the exercise of military power. This is certainly the case in Europe. Yet if we follow a different line of thought, the significance of the fact may appear to be at least debatable.

For within the German-speaking tradition that Weber belongs to, we also have an important strand of contestation that may be most aptly represented by Hannah Arendt. Precisely the period following the first great revolutions of the eighteenth century appears in her account as that of a definite decline of the apparently triumphant nation-state. If the remarkable expansion of the American nation’s might and its governments’ influence appeared to contradict her view, it has become increasingly evident how much ahead of her time she was in formulating this insight. In our age, not governments and the military instruments they wield have determined the outcomes of decisive struggles. Rather, it has been the mobilisation of large and heterogenous masses that has both facilitated the rise and the subsequent defeats of extremist movements and the projects of state capture they had undertaken. The fate of National-Socialism and Bolshevism probably serve as the best-known illustrations.

More numerous, the many anti-colonial revolutions and post-colonial wars of liberation display a pattern. In short, the experience of revolutions or even uprisings is undeniably of decisive significance for the outcome of modern wars and the longer political term. The following is an attempt at comprehension of this vastly underestimated dimension.

PART ONE | The West’s crisis of legitimacy: Empire, dependency and disillusionment

The discussion Xhabir Deralla and I have had really took off at an encounter in June 2025, during which we shared some uncontested truths: the ability of American and their allied Western governments of projecting a positive vision of their intentions seems irretrievably lost. The legacy of the “wars“ on terror and drugs has annihilated whatever credibility they might have commanded. Not unrelated to this, the times since the first invasion of Ukraine in 2014 has seen those governments positively dismissive of the disruptive power of perniciously normalised far-right positions, coupled with their patrons in Moscow successfully driving a wedge between Europeans. Xhabir Deralla’s sharp scolding of German governments’ particular lack of determination with regard to the war in Ukraine seemed as correct to me in this context.

For the German political model’s success has rested on America’s ability to accommodate the German excess balance of payments; at the same time, aggressive German export orientation would rely on an indolent accommodation with an increasingly unstable Russian fossil energy “superpower“. This has led me to think more specifically about my nation’s inept reaction to the unmistakable threats proclaimed against our close partners within the EU. Xhabir Deralla rightly points to the small Northern states as those now leading the way. It is easily understood how they came to adopt a coherent strategic position in the face of immediate threats to their physical existence.

Yet Europeans have continued to treat this situation as something less than an emergency. Widespread disbelief in government leadership characterises the present moment. It extends to rejection of authority exercised by state bodies. No industrial policy directed towards a degree of autarky was merely being discussed; and the consistent calls for a negotiated end to the conflict suggest that mainstream parties across Europe remain in denial of the challenge put in front of them: that of a counterpart in Moscow incapable of negotiating anything substantial.

To make sense of the picture requires us to take a step back. Is this not a historical display that aligns with a deeper coherence of modernity? For the German and most other European experiences of self-determination within an international system of states are inextricably imbricated in that ill-defined age of revolutions.

For if revolutions remained constant facts of the twentieth century, the “Great Powers“ peace at the Vienna Congress of 1815 ostensibly was to put an end to it. Yet even the creation of a German Union of states under reactionary governments did little to prevent the revolution of 1848; just as the integration of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw under a special statute into the Russian Empire did nothing to prevent much the same revolutionary stirring there.

It is hard not to parallel this with the unhappy history of decolonisation during the later part of the twentieth century. The liberation or emancipation of former European colonies and their impoverished populations did not go ahead without tying them in the double straightjacket of free-trade-agreements and international aid. Yet what has been the outcome of such disciplining measures? Today, as loudly as ever, the youth of those lands of the so-called “Global South“ calls for an end of Western domination. The devices that were supposed to warrant dependency and submission have carried in themselves the seeds of their own unmaking.

If some struggles for national self-determination would not be rightly labelled revolutionary – evident misnomers for such tragic farces as Chavez’ Venezuela – it nonetheless emerges as definite: Western pretense to ensure domination in the long run has done more than conserve the romantic revolutionary self-indulgence of a few Western leftists. It has turned any attempt to refer to universalities by reference to “Western values“ into self-defeat. Here lies a key for many a grievance felt by Europeans themselves in our days. The Macedonian case might offer a particularly tempting instance of such post-revolutionary dismay at Western deception. I consider it necessary to briefly outline the relevance of dealing with the Macedonian case for understanding our current predicament.

Macedonia in the shadow of the great powers

For clarity, it should be stated what is meant in the present juxtapposition of “West“ and “Macedonia“. The contemporary Republic of North-Macedonia is the result of a tortuous History in the historical territory of Macedonia. The West is a conventional expression for the powers that used to secure a dominant position within the international system, after its collapse in 1914. The historical experience of Macedonia as a republic broadly parallels the experience much of the world has had with Western power.

For the better part of the past century, Britain and France in conjunction with the USA used to support an international system of “Great Powers“ that accommodated some and excluded others.  China, Russia and to a lesser extent the defeated Japan, Germany and Italy were accommodated. Their support to the order envisaged in the Paris treaties of 1919 and the Potsdam agreement of 1945 and the parallel creation of the United Nations Organisation (UNO) was indispensable to the advantages the dominant colonial powers had secured.

Colonised countries were supposed to give their acquiescent sanction as well. This usually went hand in hand with preferential treatment of government leaders over political competitors. Conversely, any challenger could expect to meet harsh treatment. The experience of Indonesia and Congo-Kinshasa, with the deposition or elimination of their original independence governments and the massacre of opposition to their Western alignments constitute the perhaps most prominent instances of this strategy.

Macedonia had the peculiar fate of being ruled by states that were never properly regarded as Western. Bulgaria, Greece, Montenegro and Serbia had been more or less constitutional monarchies in 1912. In other words: they were minor, but recognised agents within the contemporary international system from its inception.

The fact that the contemporary Republic of North Macedonia is identical to the southern territories then annexed by Serbia has two significant implications: Serbia is thereby squarely placed in the position of a Western power and indeed has mostly sought and periodically got a privileged relationship with the core Western governments; Macedonia on the other hand is thereby placed in the position that is now frequently, if vaguely, identified as the “Global South“. The political History of the Republic therefore starts before it actually comes into being during the upheaval of the 2nd World War. Its beginnings under the effect of European imperialism in the Ottoman Empire at the start of the century deserves some attention. This is an object of Part Two.

PART TWO | The limits of geopolitics and the illusion of military supremacy

The present episode builds on the former one by paying closer attention to that international environment within which an independent Macedonian Republic must evolve. This is done by reference specifically to European circumstances of the most recent past. This narrow perspective is chosen to focus attention on those features of the current environment of European states that are most problematic.

A related purpose of this episode is to alert the reader to crucial notions that Hannah Arendt emphatically used regarding modern, by analogy to ancient, states: authority, power and violence. Their use in the context of interactions between states serves to remind us how the interior and exterior dimensions of modern statehood need to be thought together. In addition, there is an argument to relativise the usefulness of warfare as a means of public action. This follows very closely the scholar of international affairs Bertrand Badie. One can likewise draw on the History of recent wars to point: reliance on military power is unlikely to work as a safeguard against threats and nowadays does not achieve its strategic goals.

The reported stalemate at the United Nations Organisation, its Security Council notably debilitated by the absence of constructive engagement between the holders of permanent seats, has a dynamic counterpart in the public sphere. In the news coverage, we increasingly find the topic of armament as one that both divides and unites different elements of the political spectrum. The gratuitous sleaze with which security concerns or the bare survival of people under attack is reduced to a quantifiable question, may well indicate a profound malaise and  incoherence about the prospects that both the so-called “West“ and its opponents experience.

We observe a feature characteristic of our scientific-industrial civilisation. There is an imaginary of technical fixes for essentially political problems. The threat of war is supposed to be contained by superior armament. The imaginary aspect concerns the supposed increase in might conferred by more, increasingly sophisticated weaponry.

One can argue against that tendency by pointing out the limitations of such a technical outlook. For in the History of recent warfare, as Bertrand Badie highlights, superior militaries have only infrequently constituted a major advantage.

With the exception of wars of very limited scope, there has been little evidence to suggest that material might translates into strategic advantage. Numerous costly and ultimately disastrous foreign interventions, from Vietnam to Syria, illustrate how the capacity of superior militaries has been insufficient to achieve the purposes that were set before them. The definition of those purposes in turn has been supported by exceedingly poor forecasting regarding the technical feasibility of conquest, of which the failed invasion of Ukraine certainly constitutes the latest most spectacular example: even had the conquest of the capital Kiev succeeded, there is no likelihood that Moscovite forces would have been able to impose the desired outcome upon the rest of the country. Resistance is diffuse within societies. Actual conquest and successful integration into a different strategic order are almost nowhere to be found. Badie makes a point here that governments still struggle to comprehend.

There is also a significant dimension of post-colonial mutation here. Although stretching over a long period from 1919 to 1998, civil wars in Ireland have brought one indisputable outcome: rule by a few great landlords and British capitalists is over. The attempt of consolidating British domination by means of military occupation has likewise backfired and resulted in the stalemate only the Good-Friday-Agreement managed to transform. Another case in point is Algeria’s war of independence. The unfolding civil war among European as well as African populations became such a threat to French society, that letting go of the colony turned out to be a lesser evil. Yet European governments continue to treat the struggle of Ukraine against what is left of the Russian Empire exclusively in terms of a competition of so-called Great Powers.

The ineptitude of governments’ reply to the war in Ukraine can be understood in terms of an incapacity at understanding the instrumental use of violence. It is believed that superior military force could ultimately discourage Moscow from an outright confrontation with the EU and its NATO-members. There is little to support that view. This outlook on war fails in the same way as most “geopolitical“ reasoning does: the societal implication of state-organised violence for contemporary society is disregarded.

When violence replaces authority: Russia’s war and Europe’s predicament

The opposition of violence and power so emphasised in Hannah Arendts approach seems virtually absent from our collective strategic reason. Yet here is a key to the current stalemate: the instrumental function of violence within the realm of Moscow’s rule acquires specific meaning in view of another distinction Arendt makes – between power and authority. Wielding political power requires institutions equipped with authority towards the people. Power itself is nothing but the collective agency of a people.

All of that used to be well-nigh absent in Moscow a couple of years ago. Recent years before the attempt to seize Ukraine entirely however saw an increase of disobedient, oftentimes openly rebellious expressions within Russian society. In view of their ever more limited grasp over that social context of their domination, Moscovite leaders have good reason to believe in permanent war as a means to dominate society further. Directing it to a significant degree outwards has been standard procedure for the metropolitan dominant classes for most of the period following the 1993 constitutional crisis. For dominant classes that do not dispose of the solely symbolical capital of authority, options are scant. Using their financial capital to direct violence out of the capital city, into remote provinces of the former Russian Empire, has been a device that they have repeatedly relied upon. This interior dimension of the invasion of Ukraine has been most forcefully highlighted by Grigorii Iudin, Il’ia Budraitskis and other Russian contemporaries.

It seems unlikely that EU governments committed to restrictive budgeting can come up with a solution to their industrial limitations soon. Any successful re-armament will inevitably hinge on overcoming this politics of self-imposed limits to effective government action. Yet even a swift adaptation to the challenge of putting military priorities before those of class rule will come up against that other factor: Moscow can’t agree to put an end to military confrontation. Its entire administrative structure has been geared towards carrying on a conflict that has allowed its ruling plutocracy to do what their Western counterparts in France and Britain used to do right up to their intervention of 2012 in Libya: domestic stabilisation by waging war abroad.

In the case of contemporary Russian society, the forces supporting that leadership have been reinvigorated only by unleashing the most aggressive jingoism and by shifting economic resources in their favour in the course of the war economy. Any settlement regarding Ukraine and a potential conflict with European states threatens that unwieldy structure of domination that has been put in place to contain and humiliate all domestic challenges. Those could be regional as well as coming from the streets of central Russia. Unable to comprehend the limits of their own economy in its debilitating dependency on the USA, EU governments are additionally challenged by way of their ignorance towards Russian as well as Ukrainian society.

Incomprehension of social factors thus has immediate strategic significance. Since no solution is to be found within the Security Council, significant action would have to be taken within the framework of the UNO General Assembly. That is where the ineptitude of EU governments becomes most striking. The waning support within their own societies towards an ever more elusive goal of achieving a secure cease-fire in Ukraine does not seem to convince them of the need to rally more partners around their cause. The insight that a conflict over years to come requires new partnerships does not yet lead to a shift of diplomatic priorities.

Yet unconditional American cover is lost. It remains that different alliances including former European colonies across America, Africa and Asia will perhaps have to compensate for the kind of immediate protection that the transatlantic relationship no longer confers. Accepting that their own authority – and thus ability to wield power – will depend on outlining a credible course of foreign relations is still difficult for European politicians; such a shift would have to be combined with a redistribution of economic hardship within our societies. For the time being, the picture is a different one: Europeans are isolated, while increasingly citizens feel that their most immediate safety is no longer a matter of concern for those holding public office.

The Macedonian question and the unfinished struggle for sovereignty

What the “geopolitical“ excursion above has done, is to highlight what stark choices affluent and seemingly stable European societies face, as much as the vulnerable countries of South-Eastern Europe. The possibility of a return of violence to Macedonia, as part of its draft into a wider conflict between larger European states, might distract attention from one fact: perhaps only by demonstrating to its domestic audience that it will not be instrumentalised for largely illusory designs in both Moscow and the West can a Macedonian government hope to avert the worst.

Worst of all could be a replay, both farcical and tragic, of Macedonia’s first integration into Europe. For if the year 1912 marks the division of the historical Macedonian lands by minor European powers, the preconditions for that round of miniature imperialist expansions were created by the so-called Great Powers right after the settlement of 1878. The Final Communiqué in Berlin had not been possible without the leaders of the future West – France and Britain – reserving the right to effectively govern the Ottoman Empire’s fiscal authority. Long before war tore apart European Turkey, the leading imperialists of the day already ruled over aspects of its fate with the acquiescence of the autocratic monarchies in Austria-Hungary, Germany and Russia.

This nineteenth-century-order prefigured in many aspects the contemporary international system. Largely absent from it, the USA were soon to be integrated. All of this took place with a shared understanding: that the ability of governments to negotiate was a corollary to their right to use military force in the event of unsuccessful negotiations. This made sense in a world, in which «Powers» would act as formally equal members of a society of competing military organisations.

All others – namely the societies dominated by the Empires of the day – did not figure as agents in any capacity. It hardly comes as a surprise therefore that a Macedonian (as well as, for that matter, an Irish, Algerian or Albanian) state could only come into being as a challenge to the prevailing interstate relations. That is what the mounting social pressures within the Ottoman Empire at the turn of the century would finally provoke.

The outcome of revolutions and wars during the twentieth century would no longer be determined by armies alone. The sheer resistance of society in all its heterogenous complexity would ultimately lead to the recognition of conditions of legitimate state authority. That is precisely what the concept underlying the United Nations Charter, as well as the Declaration of Human Rights, means.

These two dimensions – the universal significance of revolutionary struggle as an origin of Macedonian nationhood and society as the authoritative instance of legitimate statehood – deserve separate treatment.

(to be continued)

About the author: David Andreas Steinacker writes on political philosophy, European history, democracy and the relationship between statehood and political power.

Editor’s Note: This is the first in a series of essays by David Andreas Steinacker exploring the relationship between statehood, political power, revolutionary movements and self-determination, with particular attention to Europe, Ukraine and North Macedonia. Drawing on political philosophy and historical analysis, the author challenges conventional geopolitical narratives and examines the role of societies in shaping their political future.

The historical interpretations, arguments and assessments expressed in this essay are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of CIVIL – Center for Freedom or its media platform. The author assumes full responsibility for the content.

Illustration: CIVIL Media / AI-generated

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