Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-29T00:08:21.512Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

War Is Culture: Global Counterinsurgency, Visuality, and the Petraeus Doctrine

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Extract

In one of his signature reversals of accepted wisdom, Michel Foucault modulated Carl von Clausewitz's well-known aphorism on war and politics to read, “Politics is the continuation of war by other means” (48). That is to say, even in peace, the law is enacted by force. In conditions of state-determined necessity, that force appears as a direct actor in legitimizing what Giorgio Agamben calls “the state of exception.” In English law the term would be “martial law” (Agamben 7). By extension, if globalization has again become the “global civil war” (Arendt, qtd. in Agamben 1) that was the cold war or has created a new state of “permanent war” (Retort 78), then war is global politics. So what kind of war is the war in Iraq (Reid)? It is now being waged by the United States as a global counterinsurgency. In the field manual Counterinsurgency issued by the United States Army in December 2006 at the instigation of General David Petraeus (Bacevich), counterinsurgency is explicitly a cultural war, to be fought in the United States as much as it is in Iraq. Cultural war, with visuality playing a central role, takes “culture” to be the means, location, and object of warfare. In his classic novel 1984, George Orwell coined the slogan “war is peace” (199), anticipating the peacekeeping missions, surgical strikes, defense walls, and “coalitions of the willing” that demarcated much of the twentieth century. In the era of United States global policing, war is counterinsurgency, and the means of counterinsurgency are cultural. War is culture. Globalized capital uses war as its means of acculturating citizens to its regime, requiring both acquiescence to the excesses of power and a willingness to ignore what is palpably obvious. Counterinsurgency has become a digitally mediated version of imperialist techniques to produce legitimacy. Its success in the United States is unquestioned: who in public life is against counterinsurgency, even if they oppose the war in Iraq or invasions elsewhere? War is culture.

Type
Talks from the Convention
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 2009

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Giorgio, Agamben. State of Exception. Trans. Attell, Kevin. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2005. Print.Google Scholar
American Anthropological Association. “Public Affairs.” Nov. 2007. Web. 15 June 2008.Google Scholar
Andrew, Bacevich. “The Petraeus Doctrine.” The Atlantic. Atlantic Monthly Group, Oct. 2008. Web. 22 Mar. 2009.Google Scholar
Malcolm, Brown. A Touch of Genius: The Life of T. E. Lawrence. New York: Paragon, 1989. Print.Google Scholar
Thomas, Carlyle. On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History. 1841. Notes and Introd. Michael K. Goldberg. Text established by Michael K. Goldberg, Joel J. Brattin, and Mark Engel. Berkeley: U of California P, 1993. Print. The Norman and Charlotte Strouse Ed. of the Writings of Thomas Carlyle.Google Scholar
Rajiv, Chandarasekaran. Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone. New York: Knopf, 2006. Print.Google Scholar
Michel, Foucault. “Society Must Be Defended”: Lectures at the Collège de France 1975–76. Trans. Macey, David. New York: Picador, 2003. Print.Google Scholar
Alexander, Galloway. Gaming: Essays on Algorithmic Culture. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 2006. Print.Google Scholar
Elissa, Gootman. “In Bronx School, Culture Shock, Then Revival.” New York Times 8 Feb. 2008: A1+. Print.Google Scholar
“In Memoriam.” Human Terrain System. United States, Dept. of the Army, 14 Apr. 2009. Web. 19 Mar. 2009.Google Scholar
Iraq Index: Tracking Variables of Reconstruction and Security in Post-Saddam Iraq.” Ed. O'Hanlon, Michael E. and Campbell, Jason H. Brookings. Saban Center for Middle East Policy, Brookings Inst., 26 Feb. 2009. Web. 8 Apr. 2009.Google Scholar
Stanley, Kurtz. “Assimilation Studies, Part II.” National Review. Natl. Rev. Online, 22 Mar. 2007. Web. 7 Oct. 2007.Google Scholar
Stanley, Kurtz. “Marriage and the Terror War.” National Review. Natl. Rev. Online, 16 Feb. 2007. Web. 7 Oct. 2007.Google Scholar
Lawrence, T. E. Secret Dispatches from Arabia. London: Golden Cockerel, 1939. Print.Google Scholar
Jane, Mayer. “Whatever It Takes.” New Yorker. Condé Nast Digital, 19 Feb. 2007. Web. 16 June 2009.Google Scholar
Nicholas, Mirzoeff. “On Visuality.” Journal of Visual Culture 5.1 (2006): 5379. Print.Google Scholar
Cullen, Murphy. Are We Rome? The Fall of an Empire and the Fate of America. New York: Houghton, 2007. Print.Google Scholar
Timothy, Noah. “Meet Mr. Shock and Awe.” Slate. Washington Post Newsweek Interactive, 1 Apr. 2003. Web. 20 Sept. 2007.Google Scholar
George, Orwell. 1984. New York: Signet, 1990. Print.Google Scholar
Samantha, Power. “Our War on Terror.” New York Times Book Review. New York Times, 29 July 2007. Web. 16 June 2009.Google Scholar
Rancière, Jacques. Aux bords de la politique. Paris: La Fabrique, 1998. Print.Google Scholar
Julian, Reid. The Biopolitics of the War on Terror: Life Struggles, Liberal Modernity, and the Defence of Logistical Societies. New York: Palgrave, 2006. Print.Google Scholar
Retort. Afflicted Powers: Capital and Spectacle in a New Age of War. New York: Verso, 2005. Print.Google Scholar
Thomas, Ricks. Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq. New York: Penguin, 2006. Print.Google Scholar
Rising to the Humanitarian Challenge in Iraq.” Briefing paper 105. N.p.: Oxfam and NGO Coordination Committee in Iraq, 2007. Print.Google Scholar
Riverbend. Baghdad Burning. Blogspot, 29 Dec. 2006. Web. 5 July 2007.Google Scholar
United States. Dept. of the Army. Counterinsurgency. Washington: Headquarters Dept. of the Army, 2006. Print. Field manual 3-24.Google Scholar
United States. Marine Corps. Small Wars Manual. Washington: US Marine Corps, 1940. Print.Google Scholar
United States. The U.S. Army / Marine Corps Counterinsurgency Field Manual. Fwd. John Nagl. Introd. Sarah Sewall. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2007. Print.Google Scholar
Robert, Young. Colonial Desire: Hybridity in Theory, Culture and Race. London: Routledge, 1995. Print.Google Scholar