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This weekend in the reading roundup:
Have a good weekend!
Photo credit: Ctd 2005
Here's little snippet of something I'm trying to develop at the moment as part of my research on targeted killling:
Even unpopular wars have their heroes. In the current terror wars that are being waged overtly in Afghanistan and Iraq, and covertly in Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen, it has been the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), specifically the Predator MQ-1 and the Reaper MQ-9 that have been elevated to this vaunted status. Surveying, monitoring, and observing the battle-space from afar, they represent the pinnacle of modern military technology to wage low risk war in which casualties and collateral damage can supposedly be limited to the enemy through the absence of a theatre-based human operator and high quality information gathering capability. But given that these UAVs are often engaged in activities that might appear to be the antithesis of military heroism, what does their prominent position in contemporary discourses of counter-insurgency reveal about the politico-cultural dynamics that are underpinning targeted killing? And what is it about UAVs that have allowed them not only to be given a special status in popular military discourses but to have become privileged within military circles to the point where UAVs are being acquired as quickly as they can be absorbed? Furthermore, conjuring up notions of addiction, UAVs are now described as 'Army crack' within the US military.
There are clearly strategic, operational, and tactical advantages provided by the deployment of UAVs. Primarily, UAVs allow for a low-risk horizontal expansion of combat operations into the private sphere of the enemy. Despite the pretence of clinical detachment, the thrill of possessing the ability to desecrate sanctuary space remains at large within the techno-strategic practices of modern warfare. At the same time, some of the advantages conferred by UAVs are not independent of the network centric and chaoplexic war-fighting doctrines that have become predominant over the past three decades. Antoine Bousquet (2009) has traced how understandings of war and science have been mutually constitutive since the development of Mechanism in the seventeenth century. But within contemporary UAV discourses, the privilege given to notions of speed, automation, algorithmic surveillance, information as commodity, de-skilling, and spectacle in the production of the ‘kill chain’ (USAF 2007: 16) indicates that the values of 21st century capitalism are shaping an integral aspect of counter-insurgency warfare today.
Works Cited
Bousquet, Antoine (2009) The Scientific Way of Warefare: Order and Chaos on the Battlefields of Modernity. London: Hurst.
United States Airforce (2007) Irregular Warfare: Airforce Doctrine Document 2-3
Photo credit: UK Ministry of Defence
This weekend in the reading roundup:
Enjoy the weekend!
Photo credit: jetsandzepplins
This weekend in the reading roundup:
Photo credit: Dave Hogg
The riots and disorder that occupied the streets of London, Bristol, Birmingham, Salford, Manchester, Leeds, Nottingham, and other city centers have now ended. The death toll continues to rise in the aftermath--currently five at the time of writing--while victims of robbery, property damage, and arson stare at the prospect of personal ruin.
In sum, the English Riots* revealed the very worst aspects of English society. From the police misinforming the public about the circumstances involved in the shooting death of Mark Duggan, to the depraved indifference of the cabinet who continued to holiday while cities burned, to the gross disregard for the life and well-being of others displayed by looters, to the ill-informed and counter-productive proposals to militarize policing approved by the Tories in response, to the racist and reactionary sentiments articulated by some members of the public, the behaviour has been appalling along numerous fronts. At the same time, some of those most negatively impacted by the violence have shown courage, dignity, and decency. In particular, the families of Mark Duggan and Haroon Jahan have demonstrated immense bravery and poise under conditions of devastating personal loss.
Now, the fist-shaking and hand-wringing is set to begin. Debates over who or what is responsible for the English Riots will continue over the coming months. Already, some excellent analyses have been written, including a provocative piece in the Daily Telegraph (known pejoratively as the 'Torygraph') by Peter Oborne. But while this debate is important, the terms of debate themselves should not escape scrutiny.
Already, Helen Dexter at opendemocracy has penned a thoughtful critique of how discussions are being structured, noting that couching debates in moral terms and root causes will be counter-productive. She advocates an investigation into determining the conditions of possibility under which a resort to violence becomes strategically rational for members of society.
I too share a similar unease over the form of current debate. My concern is with the primacy of the term 'community' as the central unit of analysis in arguments that are being made across the political spectrum. Why am I suspicious of the word 'community'? Because community has been used over the past thirty years as a way of eliminating the discursive space for the political articulation and mobilization of other forms of political organization including class and society. Moreover, community as a concept has been central to the reconfiguration of government that we know as neoliberalism.
Nikolas Rose (2000) has argued that the new governing logic that is fostered by the primacy of community no longer seeks to give people a political, social, or economic stake in collective social advancement. Rather, the stake is generated through a community-based ethic that shapes each individual into a productive citizen. But this citizenship is not conceived as social citizenship; rather it is territorialized at a local level in the neighbourhoods, associations, or subcultures in which an individual is said to exercise some autonomy (Rose, 2000: 1397-1399). Rose (2000) argues that:
it is from these communities that autonomous, freedom-aspiring individuals are thought to derive the guidelines, techniques, and aspirations by which they think about and enact their freedom (1398).
Thus, the art of government is govern individuals through communities by fostering an 'ethopolitics' that ensures that individuals are bound and tied to their community through feelings of honour or duty in increasingly intense ways (Rose 2000: 1399).
As Rose (2000: 1409) notes, the problem is that the primacy of community--and the pluralism that this necessary entails--as the administrative space for governing requires that normalization and control be implanted into each individual more robustly than was possible through traditional outlets like schools, prisons, or social welfare programmes. And rather than recognizing the role of context--as identified by Dexter--the challenges of pluralism, or differing levels of financial capacity, the contemporary politics of community instead asserts that its preferred values are natural, self-evident, and universal. So to inculcate and enforce these values requires forms of everyday intervention that are increasingly at odds with the principles of pluralism and autonomy. Moreover, interventions on this scale and at this depth can never be fully successful. Yet at moments of abject failure, it is the community itself that undergoes demonization--and further forms of intervention-- for the unwillingness to police the risks that are said to have emerged from its confines.
So in part, the English riots and proposals made to prevent further outbreaks demonstrate the dangers of community as the primary site of governance in two senses. In the first sense, the unwillingness to govern at the level of--or in the name of-- society increasingly fosters what Guy Debord has referred to as 'lonely crowds' who are only linked by the corrective interventions that are undertaken by authorities to foster a pseudo-autonomy that is conducive to the dominant forms of organisation and consumption that define the current age. In this sense, the riots show what can happen when this unachievable project succeeds piecemeal.
In a second sense, the focus on community means that the ongoing process of imposing a set of values will only intensify leading to further decreases in everyday autonomy and concurrent increases in alienation that may then feed into the dynamic noted above. Early indications are that the government and authorities are set to contribute to this vicious circle. For example, the call from members of both the Labour and the Conservative parties to allow for the dismantling of social media outlets in times of 'unrest' unfortunately hints that few valuable lessons are going to be learned from this tragic set of events.
*At the danger of being pedantic, no rioting took place in Wales, Scotland, or Northern Ireland.
Image Credit: James Cridland [map of locations of the London riots with results from the multiple deprivation index overlaid]
This weekend in the reading roundup:
Have a good weekend!
Photo credit: Chase Lindberg Photography
Apparently, what the world needs now--in sharp contrast to love sweet love-- is more dual purpose everyday objects that can be weaponized. Enter, the Slap Hat Extreme. According to the manufacturer, it is constructed out of
a pocket of unique impact material that is 100% the density of lead and which is sewn into the cap. Simply use the bill as the handle and the cap becomes an instant impact weapon to be used against a threat.
Wow. I don't really know where to go with this, apart from noting that Amazon suggests bundling the Slap Hat Extreme with a monograph entitled The Little Black Book of Violence: What Every Young Man Needs to Know About Fighting.
