This chapter considers the first of two additional reconstructions of state creation under international law, both of which present alternatives to statehood as political community. I call this first alternative 'the stability thesis', given its core claim that the law of state creation is primarily explicable and provisionally justifiable, not in terms of international peace and friendly relations, rather than political community. Two versions of this rational reconstruction are considered. Under the first, stability is secured by seeking to eliminate controversy: on this 'modus vivendi' approach, only those standards that meet broad international consensus should be considered legally relevant to the creation of states. Under the second, which prioritises substance over consensus, international practice is reconstructed so as to prioritise legal standards that are maximally conducive to stability in and of themselves. Ultimately, I argue that we should reject both versions of the stability thesis. Although international peace is morally important, both within state creation and otherwise, it cannot function as the primary normative foundation for this area of law.

This chapter on the German Confederation examines the largest cornerstone of the new European security system, designed to stabilise the European centre and provide an institutional structure for the cooperation of the thirty-eight remaining German states in relation to the other powers. After addressing and commenting upon the (lack of) historiography on the Bund, the chapter squarely puts this analysis of the Confederation in the context of European collective security operations, with the Bund as one of the pillars of this new post-Napoleonic security edifice, especially tasked with securing a ‘double balance of power’. The chapter ultimately fleshes out the role of the Confederation as laid down in the Bundeskriegsverfassung: to provide security for the states of the German Confederation and at the same time be the ‘pacific state of Europe’ (Heeren).