  Schmitt’s first reply is based on an interpretation of the nature of European political order in the period from the establishment of the modern sovereign state to the beginning of WWI. In Schmitt’s account, this period was not a period of mere anarchy. Rather, it was characterized by the existence of a public law governing the relations between European states, the ius publicum Europaeum (NE 140–212). The main pillar of the ius publicum Europaeum, according to Schmitt, was a strict separation between the ius ad bellum and the ius in bello. On the level of ius ad bellum, all independent states were recognized to possess the right to go to war on the basis of their own judgment of justice and necessity. The legal order of ius publicum Europaeum, in effect, did not distinguish between just and unjust war. Rather, both sides in a conflict between sovereign states were by default recognized as legitimate belligerents (NE 140–71). Moreover, since both states in any conflict were held to be legitimate belligerents, states not directly involved in a conflict were taken to possess the right to choose to back either side or to remain neutral (DCW 53–74). This framework, Schmitt argues, allowed European states to bring about a highly effective containment of the negative consequences of war, and thus of the dangers of political existence. The abstraction from the justice of war allowed states to make peace without being hampered by the need to apportion moral blame. The freedom to side with either party in a conflict, or else to remain neutral, allowed states to contain conflicts by balancing or simply by staying out of the fight. Most importantly, however, the mutual recognition of legitimate belligerency allowed for the effective enforcement of stringent constraints on the permissible means of warfare on the level of ius in bello. Inter-statal warfare during the period of the jus publicum Europaeum, according to Schmitt, distinguished carefully between combatants and civilians and abstained from using methods of warfare that might endanger the lives or the property of civilians (NE 142–43, 165–8).