As we saw in the historical narratives of Part II, the nation-state is a rela-tively recent structure. Indeed, the modern State itself is of fairly recent vintage in the life of civilized mankind, dating as it does from roughly the end of the fifteenth century.1 Before that period European governance divided jurisdiction among ecclesiastical authorities, independent cities, feudal rulers (whose own relationships were far from simple), and various oligarchies. Only when a strategic threat to the wealthy and sophisticated cities of Italy provoked a crisis of survival did these societies turn to the institutional bureaucratization of governing authority that became the modern state. The reification of the State that resulted conveyed to a state structure the two characteristics of sovereignty that had hitherto exclusively been possessed by the person of the prince—a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence domestically (the role of lawgiver) and the independence of will in foreign affairs (the right of sovereignty).
We then saw a series of changes in the structure of states, a morphology of constitutional orders or archetypes. These changes culminated in the form of the nation-state late in the nineteenth century. It was only then that the idea took hold that a State is properly—that is to say, legitimately— formed by the boundaries of its national people and not simply by the conquered or inherited territory of rulers. At each stage in this morphology, constitutional change was accompanied by strategic innovation, as those states that were able to consolidate power within a unitary jurisdiction of taxation, regulation, and administration developed new strategies or copied the strategic breakthroughs of their competitors. It was the strategic successes of the European state that made its archetypal constitutional structures the models for the world until finally the most recent form—that of the nation-state—was turned against a receding form, the colonial state-nation, and the European model became global and virtually universal.*
Why should it be that now, at the moment of its most widespread adoption, this model should be superseded? We have seen how the constitutional archetype of the nation-state presented states with three competing options: fascism, liberal parliamentarianism, and communism. The unresolved issue as to which of these options would best assure the legitimacy of the nation-state caused the Long War to persist for most of this century; now, at the moment of resolution, why would a new constitutional question be put to the conflict-weary states of the world?
It was only in 1989 that Francis Fukuyama wrote:
What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of postwar history, but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind's ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.†
How can it be that, so soon after this historic success, the fundamental form of the nation-state, of which the liberal democracies are a triumphant exemplar, would metamorphose into a new archetypal model? The reason lies in the Long War itself and the strategic innovations by which that war was won by the liberal democracies.
The nation-state has accumulated various responsibilities. The legitimating promises of earlier, preceding constitutional forms are often inherited by successive archetypes as entrenched expectations and entitlements. The princely state promised external security, the freedom from domination and interference by foreign powers. The kingly state inherited this responsibility and added the promise of internal stability. The territorial state added the promise of expanding material wealth, to which the state-nation further added the civil and political rights of popular sovereignty. To all these responsibilities the nation-state added the promise of providing economic security and public goods to its people. The failure of the Soviet Union to live up to this expectation, as much as any other cause, contributed to its delegitimation in the eyes of its nation. Very simply, the strategic innovations of the Long War will make it increasingly difficult for the nation-state to fulfill its responsibilities. That will account for its delegitimation. The new constitutional order that will supersede the nation-state will be one that copes better with these new demands of legitimation, by redefining the fundamental compact on which the assumption of legitimate power is based.
Three strategic innovations won the Long War: nuclear weapons, international communications, and the technology of rapid mathematical computation. Each has wrought a dramatic change in the military, cultural, and economic challenges that face the nation-state. In each of these spheres, the nation-state faces ever increasing difficulty in maintaining the credibility of its claim to provide public goods for the nation.