Major Forms of Interaction

Even though communications facilities within the peninsula were primitive, the small area encompassing the group of states allowed for considerable contact among them. Trade had existed for centuries and continued to be a major form of communication between the units, as well as with other areas of Europe. As in Greece, commerce led both to cooperative and conflictful types of relation­ships; some relationships increased the welfare of all parties on the basis of mutual advantage, but others led to acrimonious trade wars, sometimes ending in violence.

Renaissance Italy is most noted in the history of international politicsi' for developing permanent diplomatic institutions for conducting foreign rela­tions. Permanent embassies staffed by career diplomats were organized partly;,-'' to enhance prestige, but also to enable governments to collect information about their allies or potential enemies on a systematic basis. Without envoys with direct access to the courts and councils of other states, how could governments, each in close proximity with the others, insecure, and vitally affected by their neighbor's diplomatic moves, obtain information about the latest intrigue, amount of money in a foreign treasury, size and morale of the army, or organiza­tion of plots and counterplots? Diplomatic reporting became one of the primary requisites for the formulation of successful external policies in fifteenth-century і Italy. Aside from ceremonial and bargaining duties, the ambassador abroad served as his government's main source of information about new alliances, 4-plans of aggression, secret agreements, and domestic strife.

After commerce and diplomatic communication, warfare was a common form of interaction. The Italian states employed violence recurrently to achieve objectives or settle conflicts. The objectives of war, aside from upholding a ruler's "honor" and prosecuting legal claims, were closely related to aspirations for increasing a state's capabilities by obtaining booty, new tax resources from an annexed province or city, or ransoms and indemnities. These were all legiti­mate objects of military campaigns. Kings, princes, ruling families, or elected councils often thought of foreign politics in terms of profits and losses, and

52 Historic International Systems

since any increased source of revenue was an addition to a state's capabilities,

war was well worth the small risks and costs of a military campaign.⁴⁵ Unlike

the Greek wars, which were frequently fought by armed citizens and slaves and

sometimes lasted for decades, the wars of the Italian peninsula during the first

>' half of the fifteenth century were managed by professional officers (condottien)

yji, and fought by mercenary troops. The forms of combat were mild by today's

v standards, as victory in the field normally resulted from a series of brilliant

maneuvers rather than annihilation of the enemy's forces. After all, soldiers

cost money and represented an investment not to be wasted. Machiavelli could

report some battles in the fifteenth century in which casualties were limited to

" several horses and men.⁴⁶

Another common technique for obtaining political and economic objec-£ tives was subversion of the political processes of a neighboring city or state. The prevalence of clandestine political operations can be accounted for by two characteristics of the Italian system. First, since the units were geographically and linguistically so close to each other, it was relatively easy for subversive agents to operate abroad as sources of information or links with plotting factions. Second, because the bases of political power and legitimacy in many of the < units were so weak, the resulting domestic turmoil (with the exception of Venice and the papal states) presented opportunities for outside powers to intervene in an attempt to place their own men in power. Political instability and insecurity of regimes, a characteristic equally prevalent in many nations today, thus had numerous consequences for international affairs. As today, the Italians in each small political unit could not isolate internal problems from the external environ­ment. It was this feature of the system that gave rise to so much diplomatic іУИ intrigue, conspiracy, and betrayal and set the standards of amorality often associ-'* \ ated with the "Italian" diplomatic style, or "Machiavellianism."⁴⁷

Поиск по сайту: