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The thought of Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527) in the history of political ideas is regarded as the beginning of modern political theory, which abandons the classical Socratic view of politics condensed in the virtue of citizens as the foundation of the polis (the state), as well as the medieval Christian worldview of Thomas Aquinas, where the state and politics are subordinated to religion and Christian morality. Politics becomes distinguished as public as opposed to private, and into political theory Machiavelli introduces the concepts of power, force, strength, and violence as legitimate political notions—a kind of Copernican turn away from the classical political theory of antiquity, where “trust in mute force, which the ancient Greeks considered a non-political instrument…” (Tadić, 1996: 56), now becomes axiomatic. In political reality, new rules apply—the virtuous citizen is replaced by homo politicus.
Machiavelli, in the reality of politics, analyzes concrete political phenomena from the perspective of realism and the application of the empirical method. Among other things, Machiavelli says that “many have imagined republics and principalities that never actually existed” (Machiavelli, 2012: 65). Machiavelli’s concept of the state and power is founded on the experience of the Florentine friar Savonarola and the famous dictum that unarmed prophets have failed: “It is necessary to know that there are two ways of fighting: by law and by force” (Machiavelli, 2012: 73). In The Prince, Machiavelli emphasizes that “there can be no good laws without a good army, and where there is a good army, there must be good laws” (Machiavelli, 2012: 53).
as an unclear and disputable term. By applying methods of content and discourse analysis of Machiavelli’s works, we will demonstrate his understanding of a good army within the framework of his theoretical innovation, his new method, through the research question of whether it means a well-armed army, a standing army of monarchical states (France, Spain), the adventurer companies, compagnie di ventura, hired by Italian city-states, or an army that, in the spirit of Augustine, wages war in good faith—or something else? Machiavelli criticizes mercenary warfare and introduces the notion of an armed people, a citizen militia, into his teaching. We will explain the concept of the armed people through his republicanism, his view of the people as the pillar of preserving the state, of the political community in freedom, and the category of friendship between ruler and people.
In addition, the paper will address the reach of Machiavelli’s idea of the “good army” in the political thought and practice of contemporary society, namely, how far his idea corresponds with the concept of total defense, which in various forms is practiced in a number of states around the world.