Drones, Warfare and the Deconstruction of the Enemy

Abstract Based on the theoretical frameworks of Carl Schmitt (hostis and inimicus), Giorgio Agamben (field and homo sacer), and Grégoire Chamayou (hunter-states and kill boxes), and being seen through the theoretical lens of post-structuralism in International Relations, this article aims to analyse the use of drones, especially Unmanned Combat Aerial Vehicles (UCAVs), in the ‘War on Terror’ led by the USA. In this context, we seek to demonstrate how the use of drones has affected the logic of current warfare scenarios in three different, but related aspects. First of all (Act One), the use of drones makes the construction of political otherness of the enemy impossible, and thus identity construction by counterpoint impracticable. Then (Act Two), this paper demonstrates how there is an attempt to move the enemy to the externality of the International Community, relegating their status to banishment and marginalisation. Finally (Act Three), the authors analyse the role of kill boxes and how the solution given by this phenomenon subverts the traditional notions of sovereignty, challenging the very raison d’être of politics.

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The Alt-Right’s continuation of the ‘cultural war’ in Euro-American societies

Thesis Eleven ◽

10.1177/07255136211005988 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 072551362110059

Author(s):

Tamir Bar-On

Keyword(s):

Carl Schmitt ◽

New Right ◽

Right Wing ◽

Antonio Gramsci ◽

Left Wing ◽

Anti Semitism ◽

The Usa ◽

The Masses ◽

Hearts And Minds

In this paper, I argue that the Alt-Right needs to be taken seriously by the liberal establishment, the general public, and leftist cultural elites for five main reasons: 1) its ‘right-wing Gramscianism’ borrows from the French New Right ( Nouvelle Droite – ND) and the French and pan-European Identitarian movement. This means that it is engaged in the continuation of a larger Euro-American metapolitical struggle to change hearts and minds on issues related to white nationalism, anti-Semitism, and racialism; 2) it is indebted to the metapolitical evolution of sectors of the violent neo-Nazi and earlier white nationalist movements in the USA; 3) this metapolitical orientation uses the mass media, the internet, and social media in general to reach and influence the masses of Americans; 4) the ‘cultural war’ means that the Alt-Right’s spokesman Richard Spencer, French ND leader Alain de Benoist, and other intellectuals see themselves as a type of Leninist vanguard on the radical right, which borrows from left-wing authors such as Antonio Gramsci and their positions in order to win the metapolitical struggle against ‘dominant’ liberal and left-wing political and cultural elites; and 5) this ‘cultural war’ is intellectually and philosophically sophisticated because it understands the crucial role of culture in destabilizing liberal society and makes use of important philosophers such as Friedrich Nietzsche, Carl Schmitt, Julius Evola and others in order to give credence to its revolutionary, racialist, and anti-liberal ideals.

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Russia and the problem of Kosovo and Metohija

Balcanica ◽

10.2298/balc0738243s ◽

2007 ◽

pp. 243-268

Author(s):

Predrag Simic

Keyword(s):

International Relations ◽

Oil And Gas ◽

Balance Of Power ◽

Western Balkans ◽

The Czech Republic ◽

South Ossetia ◽

The Balkans ◽

Un Security Council ◽

The Usa

Nearly ten years since the 1999 NATO military intervention against Serbia and the establishment of UN administration, Kosovo and Metohija has resurfaced as a topical issue in international politics, separating the positions of the USA and Russia, and becoming a precedent in international relations, possibly with far-reaching consequences not only for the future of the western Balkans but also for many territorial disputes worldwide. Russia has only recently pulled herself out of the years-long Chechnya crisis, and facing similar problems in her 'new neighborhood' (Abkhazia, South Ossetia Transdniestria), is among the countries that might be affected by this precedent. Secondly, with her bad experience in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, Russia has become sensitive not only to any disturbance in the balance of power in the Balkans but also to any change to the existing international order. Moscow has not forgotten that during the 1990s many Westerners saw Serbia as a 'metaphor for Russia' and that the NATO interventions against the Serbs in Bosnia-Herzegovina (1995) and against Serbia (1999) revealed Russia's weakness, sending her the message to give up her interests in the Balkans and Europe. Thirdly, diverging American and Russian policies on Kosovo and Metohija coincide with their strained relations over the deployment of an antimissile 'shield' in Poland and the Czech Republic, the war in Iraq, policy towards Iran and other issues currently at the top of the list of international problems. Fourthly, meanwhile Russia has managed to recover from the disintegration of the USSR and to consolidate her economic and political power in Europe and the world, owing above all to oil and gas exports, but also to the export of industrial products (military in particular). The precedent that an independent Kosovo and Metohija would constitute in international relations is therefore a test of Russia's role as a permanent member of the UN Security Council. She has found herself in the role of the defender of the fundamental principles of international law such as the inviolability of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the UN members.

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WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION - SCENE OF AMERICAN-CHINESE CONFRONTATIONS

Ante Portas - Studia nad bezpieczeństwem ◽

10.33674/320196 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 75-83

Author(s):

Svetlana CEBOTARI ◽

Victoria BEVZIUC

Keyword(s):

International Relations ◽

World Health Organization ◽

Research Topic ◽

World Health ◽

Medical Sciences ◽

Global Pandemic ◽

The World ◽

The Usa ◽

Health Organization

The activity of the World Health Organization is now becoming a topic in disputes between the big power centres – the USA and China. The role of the WHO is also becoming a research topic not only for researchers in medical sciences, but also for political specialists in international relations. With the COVID-19 crisis, the WHO is becoming a scene of the major challenges – the USA and China. This Article aims to highlight the USA and China relations with reference to the work of the WHO, including the effectiveness of the organization with a global pandemic such as that of the COVID-19.

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Vida nua, profanação e o fim do sacrifício dos homens

Revista de Filosofia Aurora ◽

10.7213/revistadefilosofiaaurora.7519 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 24 (35) ◽

pp. 583

Author(s):

Glauco Barsalini Glauco Barsalini

Keyword(s):

Michel Foucault ◽

Hannah Arendt ◽

Walter Benjamin ◽

Carl Schmitt ◽

Giorgio Agamben ◽

Homo Sacer

No programa Homo Sacer, Giorgio Agamben estabelece denso diálogo com importantes autores como Walter Benjamin, Carl Schmitt, Hannah Arendt e Michel Foucault, formulando um moderno conceito de vida nua. O problema da vida nua (homo sacer), todavia, estende-se para outros trabalhos de Agamben, como A linguagem e a morte e O tempo que resta: um comentário à carta aos romanos, nos quais se apresentam outros termos, como profanação e o tempo-que-resta. No cotejo entre essas obras, este artigo se propõe a articular os conceitos de vida nua (homo sacer) e de profanação, na sua relação com o problema do tempo (o tempo-que-resta),desenvolvidos por Giorgio Agamben. Nesse sentido, aflora discussão sobre o messiânico,por nós, aqui, associado com a figura do homo sacer.

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O arquivo e a testemunha: as relações do campo de concentração na [e para] apreensão do ser linguístico / The file and the witness: the relationships of the concentration field relationships in [and for] the seizure of the language being

Profanações ◽

10.24302/prof.v5i1.1791 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 5 (1) ◽

pp. 144

Author(s):

Osvaldo Estrela Viegaz

Keyword(s):

Concentration Field ◽

Concentration Camps ◽

Human Being ◽

Giorgio Agamben ◽

Deep Dive ◽

Continuous Exercise ◽

Homo Sacer ◽

Democratic Regimes ◽

Totalitarian Regimes

O homo sacer nos permite aprofundamentos em estudos nos mais diversos matizes de pensamentos e possibilita, por isso, análises pontuais e profundas sobre o papel do ser humano em sua inserção moderna. Giorgio Agamben, ao tratar do sentido messiânico do “restar”, nos propõe um mergulho profundo no real papel dos campos de concentração e de como suas relações não foram apagadas juntamente com a derrocada dos regimes totalitários. Considerar o ser linguístico dentro das formulações do campo e sua relação com o arquivo e a testemunha é um exercício contínuo apresentado pelo filósofo italiano e que nos faz questionar nosso lugar dentro dos regimes democráticos e de como o discurso, nestas formas, cumpre salutar papel no estado de exceção permanente.AbstractThe homo sacer allows us to deepen our study of the most diverse nuances of thought and, therefore, allows us to analyze in depth and punctually the role of the human being in his modern insertion. Giorgio Agamben, in dealing with the messianic sense of "subtract", proposes to us a deep dive into the real role of the concentration camps and how their relations were not erased together with the overthrow of totalitarian regimes. To consider the linguistic being within the formulations of the field and its relation to the archive and the witness is a continuous exercise presented by the Italian philosopher and makes us question our place within the democratic regimes and of how speech, in these forms, plays a salutary role in the state of permanent exception.

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Sobre a biopolítica de Giorgio Agamben: entre Foucault e Arendt

Griot Revista de Filosofia ◽

10.31977/grirfi.v8i2.561 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 8 (2) ◽

pp. 175-189 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Raphael Guazzelli Valerio

Keyword(s):

Michel Foucault ◽

Hannah Arendt ◽

Walter Benjamin ◽

Carl Schmitt ◽

Giorgio Agamben ◽

Homo Sacer

Pretendemos dar uma breve contribuição para a compreensão do conceito de biopolítica na obra do filósofo italiano Giorgio Agamben, mais precisamente em seu trabalho de 1995, inaugurador da série Homo Sacer, cujo título leva o mesmo nome: Homo Sacer: O Poder Soberano e a Vida Nua. Valendo-se do pensamento de Michel Foucault e Hannah Arendt de um lado, e Walter Benjamin e Carl Schmitt de outro, Agamben faz recuar o conceito de biopolítica às fundações da política ocidental. Importa, para o filósofo, mostrar como estrutura, lógica e topologia de funcionamento a biopolítica anima as relações políticas desde seu fundamento e que a modernidade foi capaz de revelar, transformando radicalmente os espaços políticos contemporâneos.

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Georges Bataille

10.3366/edinburgh/9781474423632.003.0010 ◽

2018 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Nadine Hartmann

Keyword(s):

Martin Heidegger ◽

Michel Foucault ◽

Walter Benjamin ◽

Georges Bataille ◽

Carl Schmitt ◽

Giorgio Agamben ◽

Alexandre Kojeve ◽

Homo Sacer ◽

The Gift ◽

General Economy

Throughout his oeuvre, Giorgio Agamben makes numerous references to Georges Bataille. Already in the 1977 Stanzas, Bataille’s general economy is afforded one of the scholia of the chapter ‘The Appropriation of Unreality’ and scolded for its alleged simplification of Marcel Mauss’s account of the gift. A brief discussion of the letters that Bataille and Alexandre Kojève exchanged in 1937 is contained in Agamben’s 1982 Language and Death and picked up again in 2002’s The Open: Man and Animal. The only text that exclusively deals with Bataille, however, is Agamben’s 1987 essay ‘Bataille e il paradosso della sovranità’. By the time Agamben begins the Homo Sacer project (1995), and in particular in Means Without End (1996), Bataille has been banished into unambiguously dismissive footnotes or ‘thresholds’ in which Agamben distances himself from Bataille’s definitions of the sacred, sacrifice and sovereignty. Thus, unlike Carl Schmitt, Martin Heidegger, Walter Benjamin or Michel Foucault, Bataille not only cannot be considered one of Agamben’s main informants, but receives all but marginal attention from him – and this despite the fact that Bataille is generally held to be one of the crucial thinkers of the sacred and of sovereignty.

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Do homo sacer ao iustitium: Agamben e a zona de anomia do estado de exceção

Profanações ◽

10.24302/prof.v4i2.1408 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 4 (2) ◽

pp. 166

Author(s):

Pedro Lucas Dulci

Keyword(s):

Jacques Derrida ◽

Carl Schmitt ◽

Giorgio Agamben ◽

Homo Sacer

O presente trabalho fala do deslocamento das atenções de Giorgio Agamben do homo sacer para um instituto jurídico romano tão fundamental quanto, o iustitium. Muitos materiais têm sido escritos sobre a obra do filósofo italiano encontrando no primeiro paradigma a chave de leitura privilegiada para sua obra. No entanto, pouca atenção é dada ao segundo paradigma. Procuraremos ampliar os estudos agambenianos reconstruindo sua argumentação sobre esse deslocamento em relação com a teologia política de Carl Schmitt e o messianismo de Jacques Derrida.

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"Practical Dialectics", or the Laws of History and the Sovereign Power of the Paradox

Диалог со временем ◽

10.21267/aquilo.2021.77.77.029 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 395-401

Author(s):

И.И. Кобылин

Keyword(s):

The Other ◽

Carl Schmitt ◽

Sovereign Power ◽

Soviet Power ◽

Giorgio Agamben ◽

State Of Emergency ◽

Dialectical Structure ◽

Decisive Importance ◽

The One

Статья посвящена анализу предложенного А.Л. Юргановым генезиса сталинской «практической диалектики». Отталкиваясь от полемики «механистов» и «диалектиков», Юрганов прослеживает становление такой диалектической структуры, где решающее значение имеет суверенная воля модератора. «Борьба на два фронта» – это логическая машина, которая всегда обеспечивает выигрыш тому, кто ее запускает. В статье эта «машина модерации» сопоставляется, с одной стороны, с размышлениями Карла Шмитта и Джорджо Агамбена о суверенитете и чрезвычайном положении, а с другой – с идеей Бориса Гройса о советской власти как о торжестве «медиума языка» над «медиумом денег». В финале намечается дальнейшая перспектива исследования роли этой машины в позднесоветских условиях. The article is devoted to the analysis of the conception of the genesis of Stalin's "practical dialectics" proposed by A.L. Yurganov. Starting from the polemics of "mechanists" and "dialecticians", Yurganov traces the formation of such a dialectical structure, where the sovereign will of the moderator is of decisive importance. A “fight on two fronts” is a logical machine that always wins for the one who launches it. The article compares this "moderation machine", on the one hand, with the thoughts of Carl Schmitt and Giorgio Agamben about sovereignty and a state of emergency, and on the other, with Boris Groys's idea of Soviet power as the triumph of the "medium of language" over the "medium of money." In the finale, a further perspective is outlined for researching the role of this machine in late Soviet conditions.

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NEPAPRASTOJI PADĖTIS IR DIEVIŠKASIS SMURTAS: CARLO SCHMITTO IR WALTERIO BENJAMINO MINČIŲ KRYŽKELĖS

Problemos ◽

10.15388/problemos.2013.0.829 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 83 ◽

pp. 107-120

Author(s):

Kasparas Pocius

Keyword(s):

The State ◽

Carl Schmitt ◽

State Of Exception ◽

World Population ◽

Right Wing ◽

Giorgio Agamben ◽

State Of Emergency ◽

Homo Sacer ◽

Theological Discourse ◽

Divine Violence

Šiuolaikinės politinės filosofijos kontekste jau maždaug dvidešimt metų neatslūgsta domėjimasis biopolitinėmis teorijomis, kurių dėmesio centre atsiduria valdžios ir gyvybės santykis šiuolaikiniame pasaulyje, kairiųjų politinių filosofų vadinamame Imperija. Italų filosofo Giorgio Agambeno dėka biopolitikos instrumentai buvo panaudoti nepaprastosios padėties ir homo sacer sampratų tyrinėjimams. Šiame tekste, pasitelkiant nepaprastosios padėties bei su ja susijusias sampratas, bus gilinamasi į šiuolaikinės valdžios ir valdymo problemas. Aptarsime vokiečių teisės teoretiko Carlo Schmitto nepaprastosios padėties teoriją, kaip alternatyvą jai pateikdami Walterio Benjamino mesianistinę tyro dieviškojo smurto sampratą. Straipsnio tikslas – pagrįsti Benjamino idėją, kad dieviškasis smurtas gali įveikti galios taikomą prievartą. Kita vertus, keliama idėja, kad Schmitto suverenios galios samprata užmaskuoja biopolitinį galios institucijų prievartos mechanizmą, o Benjamino dieviškojo smurto samprata leidžia jį demaskuoti.State of Exception and Divine Violence: The Crossroads between the Thought of Carl Schmitt and Walter BenjaminKasparas Pocius SummaryAlready back in 1940 Walter Benjamin told us that “the ‘state of emergency’ in which we live is not the exception but the rule.” While invoking this claim, Giorgio Agamben enriches the contemporary biopolitical discourse with such concepts as ‘state of exception’ and ‘homo sacer’, which refer to bare lives of the majority of world population under contemporary capitalist and state rule. This paper, which seeks to analyse the work of Agamben, presents the notion of the state of exception by Carl Schmitt and counterposes it to the Benjaminian concept of divine violence. This counterposition allows to theoretically question the Schmittian politico-theological discourse which has been increasingly used by the conservative intellectuals and right-wing movements in the Eastern Europe, ‘the necessity of defending the nation and the state’ that they posit and to show the often concealed links between this discourse with biopower regimes. On the other hand, it is an attempt to point at a presence of multiple and radical constituent forces which, beyond liberal – constitutional and authoritarian – conservative frameworks of the State pose the threat to the political and economic order of late capitalism.

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