Citation

Nordin AHM, Öberg D. Millennium J. Int. Stud. 2015; 43(2): 392-410.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2015, London School of Economics and Political Science, Millennium Publishing Group, Publisher SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/0305829814552435

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Against a surprising level of agreement between Clausewitz, contemporary military doctrines and critical war studies on an ontology of war as fighting, we suggest that the study of contemporary warfare needs to focus more on war as processing. Through Jean Baudrillard we argue that at least some of what is referred to as 'war' is no longer characterised by encounters through fighting. We exemplify our argument by how the repetitive battle-rhythm of military targeting strives for perfect war. What remains is not war as an object in itself, but a reified 'war' that obscures the disappearance of that very object. The debate on war contributes to the reification of such a war, as an imperative telling us: 'we have a concept, you must learn to think through it'.

Language: en