Playing war

This paper argues that war video games are transitional spaces that connect players to the ‘war on terror’. It explores the pervasive influence of militarism in video games and how the US Army is enlisting play as an active force in blurring the distinctions between civilian and soldier. The paper begins by theorizing what exactly it means to ‘play’, and settles on the concept of ‘transitional space’ provided by psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott. It then investigates the ‘military entertainment complex’, an assemblage of institutions and sites that produce military video games for commercial release. Next, the paper looks at the aesthetics of video games, revealing an entrenched colonial logic instrumental for military recruitment and consent. The final section pulls all of this together to argue that video games are transitional spaces instrumental to understanding the everyday geographies of violence, terror, and warfare.     

Intimate war

Contending that domestic violence and modern international warfare are part of a single complex of violence, this paper identifies their shared intimate dynamics. Both violences operate through emotional and psychological registers that are as central to their effectiveness as incidents of direct physical harm. While these dynamics are intimate, they are present across scale, and read here through a feminist lens on intimacy-geopolitics where neither framing has primacy. Research on the connections between domestic violence and international warfare is longstanding, most recently highlighting how intimate violence is produced within warzones. The analysis here begins instead from intimate dynamics, to draw out the warlike nature of domestic violence in peacetime. Tactics of modern warfare are juxtaposed with the dynamics of domestic violence in suburban Scottish homes: shock and awe, hearts and minds, cultural and psychological occupation, just war and collateral damage. Resisting the temptation to regard domestic violence as everyday militarism, the relation is rotated: both violences continuously wind through the intimate-geopolitical. This spatial reconfiguration is structured by gender, race, class, nation and citizenship, resulting in uneven impacts from all kinds of intimate war. The interweaving of military and intimate themes is intended as a casting-off point for progressing political geographies that are attentive to intimacy as foundational in the workings of power across scale.     

The hospitality of war

In considering some of the issues raised by the troubling and troublesome thesis of ‘the barbarization of warfare’, this review article reflects briefly on civilization and barbarism on the battlefield, and in the imagination, calling in aid an unholy alliance of Joseph Conrad, Norbert Elias, Basil Liddell Hart among others, and pitting the idea of a ‘civilizing process’ against a barbarizing one. From 2003 to 2006 UN Secretary General Kofi Annan pursued an agenda that went far beyond budget, personnel and management issues, and included proposed changes to existing institutions in peacebuilding, disarmament and non‐proliferation, human rights, and counterterrorism. The overhaul was prompted by fear that in the aftermath of its invasion of Iraq, the United States might walk away from the United Nations. By showing that the UN system could be strengthened to address the new threats of the twenty‐first century, Kofi Annan hoped that the United States could be convinced to re‐engage. Despite polarization and mistrust among member states, the effort created new intergovernmental organs to address key problems, gained universal endorsement for the responsibility to protect, and established new offices in the Secretariat to make it more effective. That more was not accomplished was a result of spotty American engagement and the performance of the US ambassador, as well as hesitation among many member states that would rather have an ineffective UN than an effective one that advanced the goals of American primacy.     

Italians at war: war and experience in Fascist Italy

This article examines Fascist violence in war from the perspective of the strategies employed by the Italian army. Focusing on the military’s use of violence from the re-conquest of Libya to the civil war in Italy, the article argues that Fascism systematically employed forms of violence that were both typical and original.     

The state of war

This article frames the discussion of the ‘state of war’ in this issue of International Affairs. Beginning by noting the continued recurrence of ‘traditional’ modes of war along side so‐called ‘new wars’ and calling to aid Rousseau's brutal satire of 1756, The state of war, the article offers a discussion of three ‘responses’ to the reality of war in international relations—the heroic response, the realpolitik response and the compassionate response—and argues that a synthesis between them characterizes the general approach to war in any historical period. It then considers how the contemporary synthesis might be viewed and offers thoughts on the articles in this issue in the light of this suggestion.     

The German politics of war: Kunduz and the war in Afghanistan

This article analyses the way in which Germany's participation in the international intervention in Afghanistan has shaped and transformed the country's politics of defence and deriving policies. It argues that in the wake of operational challenges posed by the insurgency in northern Afghanistan since 2007, and in particular the increasing rate of German combat fatalities, established post‐Cold War dogmas of German politics are becoming subject to erosion. Developments in the Kunduz region of northern Afghanistan, with the tanker bombing of 4 September 2009 as its apex, have had a catalyst function in this process. In particular, strategic, operational and tactical requirements for counterinsurgency operations have had significant politico‐strategic repercussions for the country's defence and security policy more generally. As a result, in recent years the Bundeswehr has begun to undergo a far‐reaching structural process of military adaptation and innovation. The article explains and analyses this phenomenon of political change and military learning in the context of political paralysis.     

The shadow of the civil war: A historiography of civil war memory

The memory of the Civil War has become one of the most vibrant and contested subjects in nineteenth-century American history over the past two decades. Studies of Civil War memory potentially can reveal much about the cultural, political, and intellectual world of the Civil War, Reconstruction, and the Gilded Age. Whereas the Civil War has often been studied in historical isolation, histories of memory thrust off the standard constraints of periodization to emphatically link the Civil War with late nineteenthcentury history. David W Blight's award-winning synthesis Race and Reunion (2001) both indicates the topic's rapid maturation and heightens the need for a historiographical excursion to assess the collective strengths and weaknesses of this burgeoning subfield. The following essay explores the convergence of factors, both within and outside of the historical profession, which have encouraged the boom in memory studies. In addition, it traces the emerging historiography to examine both the creative diversity of the field as well as its common assumptions, insights, and strategic limits.     

Anthropologists at war?

This guest editorial addresses issues to do with the Russian invasion of Ukraine. An initial statement by one professional association prevaricates on the cause of the war by blaming NATO expansion. Here the story is told of why statements need to be unambiguous in their condemnation of Russia, which is not to say that this makes for ‘NATO anthropologists’ as some have claimed on social media.     

Managing 'civilian deaths due to war operations': Yorkshire experiences during world war II

Air raid precautions prior to and during the Second World War included guidance on the burial of civilians who had been killed by enemy bombardment. The Ministry of Health Circular 1779 was published before the start of the war, on the understanding that 'scheme-making' authorities would need time to prepare for the interment of mass fatalities. As the Blitz got underway, tensions emerged between the state's pragmatic concerns to restrict the cost and resources afforded to burial, and the wish of many local authorities to secure decent burial for their citizens. Key issues on which there was disagreement included the state-proposed use of shrouds instead of coffins, and mass interment. These practices carried overtones of the much-hated pauper funeral and ran counter to the political imperative to present civilian death as 'heroic'. This local study is placed in the wider context of the history of death and burial, and provides an indicator of the strength of attachment to customary funerary ritual during the middle of the twentieth century.     

Cadence,war and security

An increased incidence of attack has been identified as a major characteristic of the new threat posed by terrorist groups such as al Qaeda. This article considers what such a change means for Western national security systems by examining how different parts of the system change over time. It becomes evident that Western national security systems are structured on an assumption of comparatively slow state-based threats. In contrast, terrorist franchises operate at a faster pace, are more 'lightweight' and can adapt within the operational and capability cycles of Western governments. Neither network-centric warfare nor an improved assessment of the threat, called for by some, offers a panacea in this regard. Rather, it is clear that not only do Western governments need to adjust their operational and capability cycles, but that they also need a greater diversity of responses to increase overall national security resilience and offer more tools for policy-makers.