Schmittian Revival in Foreign Policy

Updated: 2026.05.11 20D ago 2 sources
Commentators are reintroducing Carl Schmitt’s jurisprudence to argue that international law is a façade and that great‑power politics should openly replace liberal norms. This rhetorical move ties a mid‑20th‑century legal theory to current debates over interventions, assassinations, and the legitimacy of institutions. — If this framing spreads, it can normalize rejection of international legal constraints and provide intellectual cover for more aggressive, unilateral state actions.

Sources

Legality and Legitimacy (Carl Schmitt)
Charles Haywood 2026.05.11 70% relevant
Haywood explicitly revives Carl Schmitt’s 1932 argument (Legality and Legitimacy) to interpret modern American politics, echoing the existing idea that Schmittian legal theory and concepts are reappearing as templates for statecraft and legal reasoning; the article applies Schmitt’s claim about preconstitutional 'norms' and legislative limits to present US legitimacy debates.
The Nomos of the Earth in the International Law of the Jus Publicum Europaeum (Carl Schmitt)
Charles Haywood 2026.04.13 100% relevant
The article cites Schmitt’s The Nomos of the Earth and applies it to the (current) Iran war, naming the United States and Israel as actors who 'breach international law' while dismissing those laws as propaganda.
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