On Geopolitical Chivalry

Mike Coté

Mike Coté is a writer and podcaster focusing on history, Great Power rivalry, and geopolitics. He has a Master’s degree in European history, and is working on a book about the Anglo-German economic and strategic rivalry before World War I. He writes for National Review, Providence Magazine, and The Federalist, hosts the Rational Policy podcast, and can be found on Twitter @ratlpolicy.

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35 Responses

  1. Dark Matter says:

    Well said… although I hope Russia’s invasion has been a wake up call. They want their empire back. China the same. Iran similar. They’re not democracies and they actively disagree with the concept of the modern international order.

    We’ll see how much of a wake up call it’s been when we look at defense spending over the next few years.Report

    • Philip H in reply to Dark Matter says:

      we knew they wanted their empire back in 2014. They seem unable to even muster the basics needed to achieve that.

      And bluntly – if we are going to ramp up defense spending to counter these threats – when we CURRENTLY out spend Russia 12:1 and China 2:1 – we better raise taxes to do so. Unless conservatives want to admit the debt limit is just a thing to whack social and regulatory program swith.Report

  2. InMD says:

    You’d think there’d be an obligation to wrestle with the fact that it was neither Democrats nor misty eyed Euro types that are responsible for the the single biggest foreign policy disaster in recent US history, which more than anything else sped the unipolar moment to its end and continues to undermine the case for America as a benevolent hegemon, both at home and abroad.Report

  3. Jaybird says:

    Sounds to me like the best option is spending money on butter instead of on guns and then claiming moral obligations on the parts of others to engage in policing on your behalf.Report

  4. DavidTC says:

    The idea that “in a civilized society, the strong protect the weak,” is a bulwark of the Western worldview, going back to the very foundations of Christian culture. Chivalry was a key conceit of Western culture, whether exhibited by courageous medieval knights in battle or Victorian gentlemen courting demure ladies. Those who were strong, or powerful, or wealthy had a duty to protect those who fell beneath them in the sociocultural hierarchy. (We can debate as to whether that hierarchy was in itself moral, but the idea of protecting those weaker than oneself is undoubtedly a noble one, even if a bit paternalistic.)

    I mean…no? Chivalry isn’t a real historic thing. To the extent it did exist, it was mostly laws of war, basically the equivalent of the Geneva Conventions. It said you took prisoners, at least fellow nobleman, you didn’t attack unarmed people, etc.

    It has nothing to do with Victorian anything, it’s a very specific thing that maybe sorta exists in the 10th and 11th century…and almost everything people think they know about it is actually from Chivalric romance, a literature genre that continued for hundreds of years, gaining a lot of fame with Arthurian stories, and, it should be pointed out, is almost completely made up. It was well over by Victorian England, hell, it was over by the time of Don Quixote in 1600, which literally exists to parody the literary genre.

    At best, you can state ‘There is might be some historic code that some knights maybe sorta followed about how combat should happen, but there appears to be very little formalization of this or evidence that anyone actually followed this’. Or, to put it another way: The people in charge of the world sure are very good at convincing us they are our betters, and that is probably the context in which positive traits like ‘Chivalry’ (Which literally just means ‘horsemanship’) and ‘nobility’ have come to exist.

    And “in a civilized society, the strong protect the weak” is just generally how _societies_ work, period. You can’t have a society without some basic rules of ‘Who is allowed to do what to the weaker people in society’, that is almost the definition _of_ society. I guess you could argue that a _civilized_ society has those rules written down and formalized, but that make chivalry a really bad example, because a) no one has ever come across any real code, and it appears to just be some informal social norms, and b) it only applied to _knights_ even if it did exist.Report

    • DavidTC in reply to DavidTC says:

      And, no, none of that is actually important, the important part is that pretending that this is a ‘bulwark of the Western worldview, going back to the very foundations of Christian culture’ is utter nonsense, as is the way you imply that Europe has _stopped_ caring about it as they have become less religious.

      Europe has always been very clear-eyed about Russia. The trick you’re pulling is trying to conflate Iran, China, and Russia, all of which are very different groups with different goals.

      The last of those is an authoritarian, and now fascist, regime that never actually got over losing the cold war. The others are not.

      China does not threaten Europe in any physical sense. Indeed, it never really has, unless you’re all the way back to WWII and it allying with Nazis.

      Neither does Iran. Iran is, and has always been, a very local player.

      China _does_ threaten Europe in a economic sense, but Europe is _also_ threatened by the US, and in fact has already ‘lost’ to the US, and they are very clearly turning to China as a threat against the US monopoly, in a sense. It is in their best interest to empower a competitor to the people who have a lot of control over their economy.Report

    • Chip Daniels in reply to DavidTC says:

      The Code Of Chivalry is what ya might call more of a guideline.

      And from what I’ve read it was conceived because precisely none of the knights were doing anything remotely noble or chivalrous, and like the laws of war the codes were honored mostly with lip service.Report

    • Pinky in reply to DavidTC says:

      If you don’t like the word “chivalry” we can try to find a better word, but there is a continuous idea of the proper action of the powerful which most anyone from the ninth century to the nineteenth would recognize, even or maybe especially in its absence.Report

      • Burt Likko in reply to Pinky says:

        Yeah, this, basically. The norm of “the strong should use their strength to protect the weak and govern themselves with justice,” which is maybe we would like chivalry to have been, we can pretend that’s what chivalry is all about today.

        And as a general rule, I like the ethic much better than a Hobbesian War of All Against All. It enables things like NATO to exist; I for one still see NATO as a force for good which we ought support. More, not less, involvement of our European allies in NATO is good; and more, not fewer, members of that alliance is good. Welcome, Finland and Sweden!Report

      • DavidTC in reply to Pinky says:

        I have a comment in moderation, but basically my objection is not that such a concept existed, my point is that the idea that the powerful should protect the weak is not some specific point in time that the Western world invented, it’s literally just what we call ‘society’.

        Pretending the ‘Western World’ invented it, or, hell, that it had anything to do with Christianity, is extremely silly. We invented the idea before _writing_. This statement, ‘Those who were strong, or powerful, or wealthy had a duty to protect those who fell beneath them in the sociocultural hierarchy.’ is true in human history as soon as we have anything we could define as a ‘sociocultural hierarchy’.Report

        • Michael Cain in reply to DavidTC says:

          Free now. The dread “n*zi” word is in it. Everyone wishes that WordPress had more sophisticated algorithms for choosing which comments to throw into moderation. I keep saying that in (a probably futile) hope that WordPress is somehow listening, and has some talented people on call.Report

        • Pinky in reply to DavidTC says:

          “basically my objection is not that such a concept existed”

          Or for a completely different take on the issue, there’s your first comment. As for this idea that every society features the strong protecting the weak, that’s just laughable. It wasn’t invented by the Christians, but they were one of the rare groups to actually try to practice it.Report

          • DavidTC in reply to Pinky says:

            Or for a completely different take on the issue, there’s your first comment.

            I love how you can’t tell the difference between me saying ‘The concept of chivalry is not any sort of real thing, historically’, and ‘The concept of people protecting the weak _is_ a real thing, but is not in any manner limited to a specific time, and is actually the definition of society’.

            OP: During the 1947 invasion by the Roswell aliens, humanity learned how to walk.

            Me: That invasion is not a real thing, and also humans have always known how to walk. They certainly didn’t learn it in 1947!

            You: CAN HUMANITY WALK OR NOT?!?!?! YOU KEEP CHANGING YOUR MIND!

            It wasn’t invented by the Christians, but they were one of the rare groups to actually try to practice it.

            Hey, fun question: How did _Roman_ society differ in the ‘the strong protecting the weak’ with regard to before and after Christianity’s takeover?

            If Christianity was somehow notable different, it should notable different _there_, right?

            Please note: There is an argument that early Christianity, by which I mean _before_ it hijacked the Roman empire, was exceptionally charitable. Selling all possessions and donating to the poor, things like that. It’s possible to argue it’s unique, although that actually be wrong, there are plenty of societies that operated that way…although it might be unique for taking a society that _doesn’t_ operate that way and becoming basically communistic within it.

            But charitable isn’t what we’re talking about, we’re talking about strong people defending weak people.

            And if we’re going back _that_ far to ‘OG Christianity’ before it infected power and in turn became infected by power…it’s worth reminding people that Jesus was, rather explicitly, against defending the weak, because he was rather explicitly against _any fighting at all_. You can’t protect someone if you’re turning the other cheek instead of fighting back.

            And, just, _wow_, are we getting a lot of new information here about how people think, the exceptionalism they think about how their society works vs. how all others works.Report

            • Pinky in reply to DavidTC says:

              Roman society differed in a lot of ways after Christianity took over. Abortion and infanticide were reduced, and women’s civil rights were enhanced. Military service is a tough call, because the Empire was in decline, but certainly the conduct of the military changed.Report

              • DavidTC in reply to Pinky says:

                Abortion and infanticide were reduced,

                No. Infanticide was. Not abortion. Abortion _increased_ under Constantine and later.

                Not as an accident, but because Christian theologians who, despite thinking it was somewhat wrong, realized the alternative was infanticide for many poor people. So they pushed contraceptives and abortion.

                Hilariously, this was, indeed, an attempt to protect the weak people. Because Rome and early Christianity both believed that fetuses/babies _became_ people, and the older they were the more people-y they were, so killing them earlier meant you weren’t killing weak _people_. You were, instead, killing weak not-yet-fully-people.

                But it’s hilariously convoluted to make you argue that.

                and women’s civil rights were enhanced.

                Untrue. While some aspects of freedom of women increased as the Empire went on, it had already happened to whatever extent it was going to by the time of Constantine.

                Meanwhile Constantine introduced a bunch of laws forbidding divorce and making the penalties much harsher towards women. This wasn’t to say divorce laws were great before that, the Empire had already been trending against freedom there, but he made them worse, especially toward women.

                Indeed, a lot of divorce laws until very recently _originated_ from there the sort of laws where men can just claim vague unhappiness of some sort, but women have to show physical abuse. Those laws literally are traceable back to Constantine and the Christian Emperors after him.

                Again, not _entirely_ his doing, Rome already was trending that way, but Christianity’s dislike of divorce meant it accelerated things when it took power.

                Incidentally, all oppression of women under Rome, especially stuff before Christianity, was based on the argument they were weak and needed protection. Afterwards, a good chunk of the laws were instead based on ‘God doesn’t like that’.

                Which shows how surreal this premise you think you’re arguing is, because you’re arguing that Christianity practiced ‘the strong protecting the weak’ by literally removing laws that asserted they were protecting the weak and implementing laws that didn’t assert that!

                This, of course, because the premise of ‘the strong protecting the weak’ is not a particular moral principle, it’s something that is so all-encompassing that literally every society is claiming to do it.

                Christianity is only ‘better’ at it in the minds of people who have already decided it is better at it. Christianity is somewhat good at protecting weak people whose behavior it approves of, and _horrifically bad_ at protecting weak people whose behavior it disapproves of it. And I say that like it’s a fact about Christianity, but in reality, it’s how all societies work.Report

              • Pinky in reply to DavidTC says:

                “No. Infanticide was. Not abortion. Abortion _increased_ under Constantine and later.

                Not as an accident, but because Christian theologians who, despite thinking it was somewhat wrong, realized the alternative was infanticide for many poor people. So they pushed contraceptives and abortion.”

                I want to be careful here, because I think you’re building in some wiggle room with “under Constantine and later”. Is it your claim that abortion became more frequent as Christianity was increasingly accepted within the Roman Empire (say, 313-476 AD), due to the endorsement of Christian theologians? Could you back that up?Report

              • DavidTC in reply to Pinky says:

                Is it your claim that abortion became more frequent as Christianity was increasingly accepted within the Roman Empire (say, 313-476 AD), due to the endorsement of Christian theologians?

                If by ‘endorsement’ we mean ‘if you have to do this thing, do it in a way that it is not as bad’, then yes. I wouldn’t use the word endorsement for that, but whatever.

                Could you back that up?

                Can you back up your original claim that it went _down_?

                Because abortion was already illegal, since 211 CE, if the father disapproved, because it could deprive him of his children, which were his property. I.e., it was legal if he was okay with it. And if he wasn’t…it was like a 30 day exile for the woman or some absurd slap on the wrist.

                The laws about that didn’t change _at all_ under Christianity. Why would there have been a reduction?

                Meanwhile, the laws about infanticide did change…well, technically, that also was already illegal, but the penalties were made very strong, and it did drop.

                Which means unwanted children were gotten rid of earlier. No, I don’t have a cite for that, I read it a long time ago, but I at least have a plausible means of the number changing that direction, as opposed to the completely unsupported ‘it went down for no reason at all’.Report

              • Pinky in reply to DavidTC says:

                Regine Pernoud’s “Martin of Tours: Soldier, Bishop, Saint” (Ignatius Press) is the source for my earlier comments.

                And my comments make sense. Yours are arguing that abortions became more frequent on account of theologians despite no changes in the laws, but also that abortion rates couldn’t have dropped because there were no changes in the laws.Report

              • DavidTC in reply to Pinky says:

                Regine Pernoud’s “Martin of Tours: Soldier, Bishop, Saint” (Ignatius Press) is the source for my earlier comments.

                …and the thing that book says is _what_, exactly?

                Yours are arguing that abortions became more frequent on account of theologians despite no changes in the laws, but also that abortion rates couldn’t have dropped because there were no changes in the laws.

                You really can’t grasp the idea that unwanted pregnancies remained the same, and thus people were redirected from (the rather massive amount of) infantcide into abortion, which was considered a lesser moral failure, and much much, possibly not even one at all?

                Exactly what part of this are you not following? It seems like a pretty simple claim.

                In fact, you do understand that plenty of pro-choice people present day have basically the same opinions about abortion, that doing it past a certain point makes it immoral? And doing it after the child is born would make it murder? So you should do it before that point, as early as possible. This really is not a complicated concept, it’s the morality a good chunk of America has.

                Is this you unable to comprehend that basically no one in the Roman empire, including Christians, thought life was some binary process that began at conception, so you can’t grasp that early Christianity was mostly okay with it, including most theologians, and even the ones that weren’t thought it was much better than infantcide.Report

              • DavidTC in reply to DavidTC says:

                Also, I have no idea how the goalposts moved from chivalry to a vague handwave towards the (also a completely made-up claim) of ‘Christianity is one of the only groups to practice one of the most basic philosophical bedrock concepts of human society’.Report

              • Pinky in reply to DavidTC says:

                First, you spent three paragraphs arguing against the historicity of the concept of chivalry. Then you asserted that you weren’t. Then when I called out out, you implied that your three paragraphs were just peripheral to your main point. I think that’s where the goalposts shifted the most. I later went on to make a claim about Christianity and chivalry that we’re debating now, and I’d hate to think you were wasting your time debating a vague handwave.Report

              • DavidTC in reply to Pinky says:

                First, you spent three paragraphs arguing against the historicity of the concept of chivalry. Then you asserted that you weren’t. Then when I called out out, you implied that your three paragraphs were just peripheral to your main point.

                I spent three paragraphs pointing out how someone’s understanding of a concept (chivalry) was not historically accurate, and then a final paragraph explaining what that concept actually is called (society) and where it is came from (literally human pre-history), which was the actual point I wanted to get across

                Other people would call that ‘addressing the original fake claims of the article which is a common misconception that needs addressing, and then quickly summarizing the truth’, but Pinky has decided it’s goalpost shifting.

                That’s me, I can apparently goalpost shift while I’m in the middle of originally erecting the goalposts in literally my first comment.Report

            • North in reply to DavidTC says:

              David, I would suggest the best way to hammer this out is to focus on the formal tenants of the respective faiths rather than how societies functioned under the dominion of various faiths since the latter method introduces all kinds of external extraneous considerations.

              Doctrinally, and I want to be cautious because this isn’t my area of expertise, Christianity was somewhat unique in that it preached a great deal about the spiritual exaltation of the meek and lowly over the temporally lofty and powerful. The examples abound: “So the last will be first, and the first will be last.”; “I’ll say it again-it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of A needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God!” etc etc.
              This contrasts with pre-christian faiths, both polytheistic and monotheistic*, which, to grossly simplify a large varied group of religions, were considerably more focused on strength, valor, accomplishment and various positive aspects of the temporally powerful alongside mysticism and instrumental discussions on how to properly go about glorifying or appeasing the Gods (to gain their favor or mercy).

              My understanding is that Christianity was pretty unique in their doctrinal approach and that was one reason that it spread like wildfire. It was the Ipod of faiths in its time. There were, necessarily, a lot more meek folks (women, slaves, poor) than strong and in many cases it was the meek who were raising and educating even the next generation of the strong. In Roman times Christianity didn’t spread (initially) by the sword but by persuasion and witness. To wit by being winsome and by appealing to people as they were and where they lived (the Christians forgot a lot over 1800 some years of domination it seems). The old polytheistic faiths just, didn’t, and they got routed accordingly.

              Now I wouldn’t ascribe to Christianity sole credit for the development of what we call the modern liberal worldview of society but to try and excise its influence strikes me as a-historic.

              *I’d want to exclude Judaism from this analysis entirely because the Jewish faith was and is non-evangelical and had no pretensions of spreading to the entire world and thus is incidental to this discussion beyond being the progenitor faith of Christianity.Report

              • DavidTC in reply to North says:

                I mean, I could go into detail about how much I agree with that or not, but it’s literally the opposite of the claim that ‘[the concept that the powerful should protect the weak] wasn’t invented by the Christians, but they were one of the rare groups to actually try to practice it.’

                Especially since this discussion has been pretty much about claims about Christianity _as government_, the exact opposite of the time you’re talking about.

                But I will point out that, as far as I am aware, the history of Christianity is basically the history of all successful evangelical religions. They start out appealing to the masses, usually in opposition to some sort of authority, and by the end the authority has co-opted them and somehow all the revolutionary stuff is gone.Report

              • Pinky in reply to DavidTC says:

                “Especially since this discussion has been pretty much about claims about Christianity _as government_”

                No, not really. Is that what you thought we were talking about?Report

              • DavidTC in reply to Pinky says:

                Pinky, if you have a problem with that phrasing, feel free to substitute in Christendom, aka, the system dating from the fourth century by which governments upheld and promoted Christianity.Report

              • North in reply to DavidTC says:

                Oh I didn’t see it being a discussion about government. I’d be open to your point for sure, I’m trying to think about a pre-christian religion that had their particular liberal roots and revolutionary doctrine, do you have any examples that spring to mind?Report

              • DavidTC in reply to North says:

                What a discrete ‘religion’ is under polytheism is kind of vague, it’s not really a ‘new religion’ (Inventing new religions whole cloth is actually kind of rare, period), just a new form of worship of a lesser God or whatever.

                And I was thinking of stuff like:

                https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dionysian_Mysteries

                Now, at first glance I admit it seems weird to call a mystery religion evangelical, but they did deliberately try to recruit new members, they just did it secretly. Unlike how the rest of religion functioned in Greece, which was you just went to whatever shrine you thought sort of concerned the topic you wanted to pray about, and no one would actually assert they were a worshiper of a specific God unless they belong to a specific religious order.Report

              • DavidTC in reply to DavidTC says:

                To put it in more basic terms, if you are out recruiting for your religion, that implies a)your religion is not the dominant one where you are, and b) you aren’t going to recruit people who are happy with their current reality, because they’re probably happy with their religion. The best way to recruit is to go after dissatisfied people who want changes in the world.

                But religions are rarely actual revolutionary movements and usually, if they get popular enough or someone in charge converts, end up being co-opted into the existing power structure. I’m not saying that has to happen, I’m sure there’s some counter examples, but it usually does.Report

              • North in reply to DavidTC says:

                Cool, that is really interesting.Report

  5. Chip Daniels says:

    I generally agree with Mike’s points here, but it seems a bit odd and unproductive to speak about support of allies in terms of chivalry.

    That carries with it the idea that our assistance in the various European or Pacific wars were some form of charity, a gentleman defending the honor of a helpless lady.

    Its probably better understood as enlightened self interest, since aggression against one liberal democracy threatens all.Report

  6. Brent F says:

    I’m going to be absolutely blunt. Whenever an American opens his mouth about foreign policy and says things about Europe or Europeans when not specifically talking about the EU, they’re going to be spouting of some simplistic ignorant nonsense.

    Europe is dozens of independent states, each with their own strategic cultures and national interests and not a heck of a lot of unity between them. Even to divide West and East like the author does is profoundly myopic. The Brits are not like the French who aren’t like the Germans who aren’t like the Italians, while the Poles and the Hungarians and the Greeks in the east aren’t any more unified in outlook.

    This is a longwinded complaint that European countries are their own countries with their own sense of national interest that isn’t just being American auxiliaries. There’s a huge overlap in interest with the US, that’s why there’s an Atlantic alliance, but that doesn’t mean everyone is in one great Liberal Order blob.Report

    • DavidTC in reply to Brent F says:

      The thing that gets me in the article is the overgeneralization from ‘failing to demonize Iran and China’ to ‘thus not caring about Russia’. Like those three countries are magically treated the same because America has decided that they don’t like those three specific countries.

      The idea that Europe doesn’t care about Russia is incredibly silly. Russia is the biggest threat to Europe in the world, and Europe knows that, and excuse me for being an American talking about Europe like it’s one entity but I’m pretty certain the entire continent remembers when Russia had all the way to middle of Germany! And is at least a little concerned that they seem to want to rebuild that. Now, what each country wants to do about that differs, but the idea they don’t care about it is kind of absurd.

      Meanwhile, China is a useful counterbalance to American hegemony, and freaking Iran isn’t a threat to anyone in Europe. Or America, for that matter, in case anyone is confused.Report

  7. DavidTC says:

    You know, I’d be a lot more inclined to give Mitt Romney an apology, which he does deserve…

    …if the Republicans hadn’t entirely given up on controlling Russia due to a bunch of lobbying by Russia. At exactly the time that Russia was trying to take over the world.

    I mean, feel free to say that the American liberals were wrong, they were, the left was too and I will admit that. But they aren’t the one arguing seriously in newspapers right now that we shouldn’t do anything. That’s the Republicans, who has been fully infected at this point by Russian money and propaganda.

    The liberals believe nonsense about peace and love, but when it was actually time to do something, they did. The right warmongered due to some sort of weird philosophy that warmongering is good, but the second thing needed to do something, it turned out that there was a hell of a lot of money flowing around and they didn’t really want to.

    Btw, it’s actually been interesting being on Twitter and watching what are clearly Russian paid trolls to try to incite the anti-war left against doing anything to help Ukraine, and everyone just continually rejecting their positions. It turns out even the anti-war left is fully on board with sending equipment for people to fight off an invasion.Report