In this article, Charles Tilly characterized war-risking and state-making as “quintessential protection rackets with the advantage of legitimacy.” If ordinary protection rackets represent organized crime, then war-making should be considered expotentially larger examples of organized crime. Without painting all soldiers and politicians as common criminals, the author argues that the idea of war-makers as “coercive and self-seeking entrepreneurs” is much more realistic than other alternatives used to describe conflict. Based on the history of European wars, Tilly explores the place of organized violence in the growth and change of nation-states. Ultimately he concludes that war makes states, and what we refer to as war-making and state-making, when scaled down, would be categorized as organized crime.
