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Tag: syria
Mercenaries, Continued
The Thirty Years’ War is famous for the use of mercenaries; it has even been called “a war between the Scots and the Irish, fought in Germany.” (I love this quotation but I have been unable to locate its source.) We can look at mercenaries in the war on three levels: individual, unit, and army. …
Not A Westphalian Moment
History repeats itself, and historians repeat each other. We are witnessing a case of one or the other in the current situation in Syria, where religious conflict has called to mind the religious conflicts of 16th and 17th century Europe. If Europe ended its religious wars with the Peace of Westphalia, the thinking goes, a …
Syria and Westphalia: The New Orthodoxy?
Here is yet another article linking the Syrian civil war with the Peace of Westphalia (and the Thirty Years’ War). I don’t have anything to add to what I’ve already said here and here. The comparison is picking up steam (this is the fourth article that I can recall) in spite of my best efforts …
Syria and Westphalia
[Note: This post originally appeared on my blog on February 9, 2014.] The idea of linking Syria and Westphalia had never occurred to me until I stumbled across it on an unrelated search last week. I found that it was not a new or isolated connection, but one that has been going since the beginning …