Despite Mills’ (2010 [1956]) clear-cut examination of “lords of war,” militarism and modernity have been largely neglected in sociology avoiding any investigation of military power and modern industrialization (Giddens 1990, 9). Max Weber, disagreeing with militarism, looked at war and imperialism as suitable instruments of modernity (Mann 2018, 39). Studies on militarism highlighted how it is inherent to modernity, contributing to the consolidation of Western countries and to building post-colonial statehood in the twenty-first century. This chapter addresses some theoretical and empirical aspects of militarization and modernity by considering specifically the militarization of islands as the outcome of a colonization process undertaken by Western countries, culminating in the US and NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) policies of geopolitical control of extended territories. Within the limits of our contribution, we aim to problematize the meanings, representations, and effects of the military bases in geographically and economically isolated territories.

In the first section, we address the issue of modernity and the military, how modernity progressed by acquiring the monopoly of violence, and established social control over time, notably and progressively since World War II; thus, in late modernity the spending on technological weaponry became one of the more relevant factors. In the second section we present the case of Sardinia as a case study of the militarization of a peripheral territory, an example of many subjugated islands (Vine 2009) and as reflexivity on modernity.