Reflection

After Friday's class, my views on the primacy of territorial integrity changed a little, or at least deepened. I suppose that's a good thing, as it means that I'm learning or growing or something to that effect. So I'll briefly expand, modify, or contradict the ideas reflected in my September 10th post.

Security (defined as territorial integrity) should not and can not be the aim to which leaders strive. It is merely a useful  instrument in meeting leaders' self-interests by providing them with power (whether as an end itself or a means to realize other ends). Security increases power, yet it does so with variable and typically diminishing marginal returns. Once a certain level of security is reached, further expenditures are no longer the most efficient way to increase power; the point at which this occurs depends on the resources, technology, geography, culture, and political structure of a state and its neighbors.

I would thus argue that nothing fundamental has changed since Machiavelli wrote the Prince. The same underlying principles should guide the behavior of states and leaders. It is only circumstances that have changed, but when implementing policy circumstances make all the difference: in the context of renaissance Italy, increasing territorial security was almost universally the best way to increase power, and Machiavelli was wise to advocate it based on observable politico-militay realities. In the context of the contemporary world, however, the same advice may not hold true.