Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 War as peace, peace as pacification
- 2 War on waste; or, international law as primitive accumulation
- 3 ‘O effeminacy! effeminacy!’: martial power, masculine power, liberal peace
- 4 The police of civilisation: war as civilising offensive
- 5 Air power as police power I
- 6 Air power as police power II
- 7 Under the sign of security: trauma, terror, resilience
- Notes
- Index
7 - Under the sign of security: trauma, terror, resilience
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 September 2014
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 War as peace, peace as pacification
- 2 War on waste; or, international law as primitive accumulation
- 3 ‘O effeminacy! effeminacy!’: martial power, masculine power, liberal peace
- 4 The police of civilisation: war as civilising offensive
- 5 Air power as police power I
- 6 Air power as police power II
- 7 Under the sign of security: trauma, terror, resilience
- Notes
- Index
Summary
I tried to be as prepared as much as was possible, that I thought possible. I prepared myself. There was no counsel. Not that I would term, not any. I could look, listen, sensing what I might … the thing to separate us from my fellows
who we were
I may speak of security, perhaps of securitys, the security, that security, security.
James Kelman, Translated Accounts (2001)The extent to which the war power seeps into our everyday thoughts and routines has been well documented. As everything and everywhere becomes a security zone, so the war power finds a way of threading itself through our lives. We know plenty about the militarised nature of toys and games, about fashion as military chic, about cars designed as combat-ready flexible fortresses and of urban spaces secured as war zones. More than anything, our everyday language and thus our being and thinking is weighed down by war power: we talk in everyday terms of launching a blistering attack, continuing fallout, receiving flak, of‘press-gangs’ (originating from the collective noun for a group of sailors who forced men into the navy), ‘headhunters’ (originally from the desire to decapitate the enemy King),‘blockbusters’ (originally a large bomb used to demolish a number of buildings simultaneously), ‘pickets’ (originally the term for a group of soldiers placed in advance of the rest of the troops), ‘freelancers’ (originally a medieval mercenary) and ‘raids’ (originally a military expedition on horseback or a hostile and predatory incursion of mounted men).
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- War Power, Police Power , pp. 191 - 212Publisher: Edinburgh University PressPrint publication year: 2014