Morale and the affective geographies of the 'war on terror'

Cultural Geographies

Volumn 17, Issue 2, 2010, Pages 219-236

  Anderson, Ben ^a  

^a DURHAM UNIVERSITY   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

Affect; Airpower; Emotion; Morale; Networks; Power; War on terror

Indexed keywords

CULTURAL GEOGRAPHY; MORALITY;

UNITED STATES;

EID: 77951244137     PISSN: 14744740     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/1474474010363849     Document Type: Article

References (127)

1. H. Ullman and J. Wade, Shock and awe: achieving rapid dominance (Washington, National Defense University, 1996), pp. 20, 61, 62.
2. M. Delanda, War in the age of intelligent machines (New York, Zone Books, 2003).
3. On the constitutive role of hope see B. Anderson, 'Hope for nanotechnology: anticipatory knowledge and the governance of affect', Area 19 (2007), pp. 156-65.
4. S. Lindqvist, A history of bombing (London, Granta, 2001). For a summary of this work.
5. see P. Adey, 'Aeromobilities: geographies, subjects, and vision', Geography compass 2(5) (2008), pp. 1318-36.
6. On 'a production of permanent anxiety' see S. Graham, 'Cities and the "war on terror"', International journal of urban and regional research 30 (2006), pp. 255-76.
7. on a 'globalization of fear' see M. Davis, 'The flames of new York', New left review (November-December) (2001).
8. on a 'liquid fear' see; Z. Bauman, Liquid fear (London, Polity Press, 2006).
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11. L. Amoore, 'Vigilant visualities: the watchful policies of the war on terror', Security dialogue 38(2) (2007), pp. 215-32.
12. Non-representational theory defines affect in at least three ways: a) as pre- and post individual capacities of a body to affect and be affected; b) as bodily intensities that are qualified according to social differences e.g. queer shame or class resentment; and c) as specific named complexes of thinking/feeling in a differentiated field of affectivity (such as boredom or hope). My emphasis is on this final definition of affect. For examples of these differences
13. see D. McCormack, 'An event of geographical ethics in spaces of affect', Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 4 (2003), pp. 488-507.
14. J. Lim, 'Queer critique and the politics of affect', in K. Browne, G. Brown and J. Lim, eds, Geographies of sexualities (London, Ashgate, 2007), pp. 53-67.
15. B. Anderson, 'Becoming and being hopeful: towards a theory of affect', Environment and planning D 35(5) (2006), pp. 733-52.
16. For a summary of theories of affect see N. Thrift, 'Intensities of feeling: towards a spatial politics of affect', Geografiska annaler 86B (2004), pp. 57-78.
17. For a careful analysis of the relation between affect and specific modalities of power see P. Adey, 'Airports, mobility, and the calculative architecture of affective control', Geoforum 39 (2007), pp. 438-51.
18. On these and other different modalities of power see J. Allen, Lost geographies of power (London, Blackwell, 2006).
19. See also, B. Anderson, 'Modulating the excess of affect: morale in a state of total war', in M. Gregg and G. Seigworth, The affect and cultural theory reader (London, Duke University Press, 2010).
20. A. Ophir, 'The two-state solution: providence and catastrophe', Journal of homeland security and emergency management 4(1) (2005) (no pagination).
21. Homo sacer. Sovereign power and bare life (Stanford, Stanford University Press Stanford, 1998).
22. The phrase 'productive betrayal' is from M. Ojakangas, 'Impossible dialogue on biopower: Agamben and Foucault', Foucault studies 2 (2005), pp. 5-28.
23. S. Graham, 'Cities and the "war on terror"', International journal of urban and regional research 30 (2006), pp. 255-76.
24. See D. Gregory, 'In another time-zone the bombs fall unsafely. "targets, civilians and late modern war"', Arab world geographer 9(2) (2006), pp. 88-111, for a discussion of these different forms of witnessing.
25. On race, gender and the figure of the terrorist, see S. Ahmed, The cultural politics of emotion (Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press, 2004).
26. J. Puar, Terrorist assemblages: homonationalism in queer times (London, Duke University Press, 2007).
27. A. Mbembe, 'Necropolitics', Public cultures 15(1) (2003), pp. 11-40, 40, 15.
28. D. Gregory, 'The black flag. Guantanamo Bay and the space of exception', Geografiska annaler b 88(4) (2006), pp. 405-27.
29. C. Minca, 'Giorgio Agamben and the new biopolitical nomos', Geografiska annaler b 88(4) (2006), pp. 387-403.
30. M. Dillon, 'Virtual security: a life science of (dis)order', Millennium: journal of international studies 32(3) (2003), pp. 531-58.
31. L. Amoore and M. De Goede, 'Transactions after 9/11: the banal face of the preemptive strike', Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 33(2) (2008), pp. 173-85.
32. J. Coaffee and D. Wood, 'Security is coming home: rethinking scale and constructing resilience in the global urban response to terrorist risk', International relations 20(4) (2006), pp. 503-17.
33. B. Masusmi, 'The future birth of the affective fact', Conference proceedings: genealogies of biopolitics (2005a). Available at: www.radicalempriicism.org (accessed 30.04.06).
34. B. Massumi, 'Fear (the spectrum said)', Positions 13(1) (2005b), pp. 31-48.
35. G. O'Tuathail, 'Just out looking for a fight': American affect and the invasion of Iraq', Antipode 35(5) (2003), pp. 856-70.
36. C. Katz, 'Banal terrorism', in D. Gregory and A. Pred, eds, Violent geographies: fear, terror, and political violence (London, Routledge, 2007), pp. 349-62.
37. A. Pred, 'Situated ignorance and state terrorism', in D. Gregory and A. Pred, eds, Violent geographies, pp. 363-84.
38. The terms 'affect structure' and 'affective beings' are from: E. Isin, 'The neurotic citizen', Citizenship studies 8(3) (2004), pp. 217-35.
39. E. Thacker, 'Nomos, nosos and bios', Culture machine (2005), available at: http://culturemachine.tees.ac.uk/Cmach/Backissues/j007/articles/thacker. htm (accessed 16.02.06).
40. M. Foucault, Society must be defended: lectures at the College De France, 1975-76 (London, Allen Lane, 2003), p. 242.
41. The term 'version' is used by Despret (2004) to give a sense that multiple alternatives of any affect, emotion or feeling are cultivated (rather than constructed) and that those different 'versions' coexist. So the version of morale assembled in 'effect based targeting' coexists with other versions of morale.
42. V. Despret, Our emotional makeup (New York, Other Press, 2004).
43. On techniques of self-inflicted pain and sensory deprivation see: M. Danner, Torture and truth (New York, New York Review Books, 2004).
44. K. Greenberg, J. Dratel and A. Lewis, The torture papers: the road to Abu Ghraib (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2005).
45. See Massumi, 'Future birth of the affective fact'.
46. Gregory, 'In another time-zone'.
47. Because war is an extraordinarily complex activity Clausewitz was critical of 'the endeavour to establish maxims, rules and even systems for the conduct of war' (Book II, ii, 6) since, at best, war was a 'calculation of probabilities' (Book I, i, 20). He therefore takes as his object of analysis the 'atmosphere in which war moves, of danger, physical effort, uncertainty, and chance' (Book I, iii, 46). What Clausewitz named as 'moral forces' have a critical role in relation to this 'atmosphere'. 'Moral forces' refer to affective states, including courage, the will to fight, and enthusiasm, that when taken together constitute the 'espirit des corps'.
48. C. Clausewitz, On war (London, Penguin, 1968 [1832]).
49. See for example, P. Meilinger, 'Ten propositions regarding airpower', Airpower journal 10(1) (1996), pp. 52-72.
50. D. Liddell, 'Operational art and the influence of will', Marine corps gazette 82(2) (1998). pp. 50-5.
51. K. Mueller, 'The essence of coercive air power: a primer for military strategists', Air and space power journal - chronicles (2001), available at: http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/cc/mueller.html (accessed 15.02.2008).
52. E. Hinman, The politics of coercion: toward a theory of coercive airpower for post-Cold War conflict (Maxwell, Air University Press, 2002).
53. K. Rizer, 'Bombing dual-use targets: legal, ethical, and doctrinal perspectives', Air and space power journal (2001), available at: www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/cc/Rizer.html (accessed 7.03.07).
54. On naming as evocative and referential, see D. Riley, Impersonal passion. Language as affect (London, Duke University Press, 2005).
55. A. Galloway and E. Thacker, The exploit: a theory of networks (London, University of Minnesota Press, 2007).
56. The analysis is based on texts of three types; current US military doctrine, a literature on effects based airpower generated in the intersections between think tanks, universities and the military pre and post the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, and texts in the 'classic' literature on airpower. All material is publically available.
57. See Riley, Impersonal passion.
58. For citation of this special issue in the context of counterinsurgency discussion see: C. Dunlap, 'Airminded considerations for joint counterinsurgency doctrine', Air & space power journal Winter (2007), available at: http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj07/win07/dunlap. html (accessed 23.05.08).
59. E. Ash, 'Terror targeting: the morale of the story', Aerospace power journal 13(4) (1999), pp. 33-47.
60. R. Ek, 'A revolution in military geopolitics', Political geography 19 (2000), pp. 841-74.
61. A. Latham, 'Warfare transformed: a braudelian perspective on the "Revolution in military affairs"', European journal of international relations 8(2) (2002), pp. 231-66.
62. It is worth noting that 'effects based' targeting extends back to the targeting of 'vital nodes' in World War II.
63. P. Meilinger, 'A history of effects-based operations', The journal of military history 71 (2007), pp. 139-68.
64. US Joint Forces Command, J9 Joint Futures Lab, A Concept for Rapid Decisive Operations, RDO White paper 2.0. (Norfolk, VA, U.S. Joint Forces Command).
65. On different network forms; see J. Arquilla and D. Ronfeldt, The advent of netwar (Santa Monica, CA, RAND, MR-789-OS, 1996).
66. M. Dillon, 'Poststructuralism, complexity and poetics', Theory, Culture & Society 17(1) (2000), pp. 1-26.
67. S. Weber, Targets of opportunity: On the militarization of thinking (New York, Fordham University Press, 2005).
68. On network movement, see, J. Arquilla and D. Ronfeldt, eds, Networks and netwars: the future of terror, crime, and militancy (Santa Monica, CA, RAND, MR-1382-OSD, 2001).
69. J. Arquilla and D. Ronfeldt, 'Swarming - the next face of battle?' (2003), available at: http://www.rand.org/commentary/2003/09/29/AWST.html (accessed 23.07.07).
70. For debates on the 'center of gravity' see M. Vego, Operational warfare. (Newport, RI, Naval War College, 2002).
71. A. Echevarria, Clausewitz's center of gravity: changing our warfighting doctribe-again! (Carlisle, PA, US Army War college, Strategic Studies Institute, 2002).
72. H. Arendt, The human condition (Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1958), p. 220.
73. Ibid., p. 245.
74. C. Dunlap, 'Air-minded considerations for joint counterinsurgency doctrine', Air & space power journal Winter (2007), available at: http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj07/win07/dunlap. html (accessed 23.05.08).
75. Especially: USSBS (1947a) Effects of bombing on German morale. 2 vols. European Survey Report 64B Morale Division. Washington, DC.
76. USSBS (1947b) The Effects of Strategic Bombing on Japanese Morale. Pacific Survey Report 14 Morale Division. Washington, DC.
77. On morale in the context of 'total war' see, for example, J. Ulio, 'Military morale', The American journal of sociology 47(3) (1941), pp. 321-30.
78. R. Park, 'Morale and the news', The American journal of sociology 47(3) (1941), pp. 360-77.
79. See Anderson, 'Modulating the excess of affect' for an analysis.
80. Ash, 'Terror targeting', p. 33.
81. JWARS is a 'campaign level' computer simulation war gaming tool that includes 'soft factors' such as the interplay of morale and cohesion as it affects 'will to fight'. 'Morale and cohesion' is given a numerical value on the basis of a set of sub elements including; the amount of time soldiers and leaders serve together, unit pride, unit discipline, leader-to-subordinate loyalty, soldier-to-soldier loyalty, and unit morale. 'Perception assessment matrices' are used in counterinsurgency operations to establish a surface of contact between psychological processes and counterinsurgency operations.
82. For discussion of morale/will in the context of the role of 'cognitive' or 'psychological' effects, see: D. Chisholm, 'The risk of optimism in the conduct of war', Parameters (Winter, 2003), pp. 114-31.
83. G. Hammond, The mind of war: John Boyd and American security (Washington, DC, Smithsonian Institution Press, 2001).
84. S. Carey and R. Read, 'Five propositions regarding air power', Air & space power journal 20(1) (Spring 2006), pp. 63-74.
85. D. Deptula, 'Effects-based operations', Air & space power journal 20(1) (Spring 2006), pp. 4-5.
86. M. Wark, Gamer theory (Harvard, Harvard university Press, 2007).
87. J. Warden, 'The enemy as a system', Airpower journal 9(1) (1996), pp. 41-55.
88. Ibid., p. 5.
89. P. Meilinger, 'Air strategy: targeting for effect', Aerospace power journal 13(4) (1999), pp. 48-61.
90. Ibid., p. 50.
91. Ibid., p. 50.
92. Ibid., p. 50.
93. Weber, Targets of opportunity.
94. Levy cited in: S. Weber, 'Special effects and theatricality', Emergences 10(1) (2000), pp. 119-26.
95. See also P. Levy, Becoming virtual: reality in the virtual age (New York, Plenum Trade, 1999).
96. Even though unlike in classic airpower theory civilians are not targeted 'directly' - compare with G. Douhet, Command of the air (New York, Arno Press, 1972 [1921]).
97. Estimates suggest a total of around 80 million leaflets were dropped and a total of 610 hours of TV and Radio were broadcast in the first phase of 'Operation Iraqi freedom'. The stated aim was to stop Iraqi troops fighting for the regime.
98. S. Collins, 'Mind games', Nato review Summer (2003), available at: http://www.nato.int/docu/review/2003/issue2/english/art4.html (accessed 12.07.08).
99. See US Army/Marine Corps, Counterinsurgency fieldmanual. (Chicago and London, University of Chicago Press, 2007).
100. The consensus in an emerging literature on counterinsurgency and airpower is that airpower has a logistical role in support of operations, and a central role in 'precision' killing, interdiction of insurgent held territory, establishing information superiority, and various 'non-kinetic' actions such as perception management.
101. See: J. Corum and W. Johnson, Airpower in small wars: fighting insurgents and terrorists (Kansas, University Press of Kansas, 2003).
102. See special issue of Air & space power journal on 'irregular warfare' and airpower Winter (2007), available at: http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj07/win07.html (accessed 10.02.08).
103. R. Stuewe, 'One step back, two steps forward. An analytical framework for airpower in small wars', Air & space power journal Spring (2006), available at: http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj06/spr06/stuewe. html (accessed 10.02.08).
104. For an analysis of the biopolitical logic of focusing on 'popular support' in counterinsurgency see B. Anderson, 'Population and affective perception: biopolitics and anticipatory action in US counterinsurgency doctrine', Antipode 42 (forthcoming).
105. Ullman and Wade, 'Achieving rapid dominance', p. 64.
106. COIN FM, E-5-27.
107. For discussions of effects-based airpower see: U.S. Joint Warfighting Centre, Operational implications of effects-based operations (EBO). (Washington, U.S. Government, 2004).
108. S. Smith, Complexity, networking and effects-based approaches to operations (Washington, Center for Advanced Concepts and Technology, 2006).
109. M. Vego, Operational warfare (Newport, RI, Naval War College, 2002).
110. R. Freniere, J. Dickmann and J. Cares, 'Complexity based targeting: new sciences provide effects', Air & space power journal (2003), available at: http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj03/spr03/frenier e.html (accessed 10.07.06).
111. RAND. Effects-based operations: A grand challenge for the analytical community (Santa Monica, RAND, 2001), p. 7.
112. Both 'full spectrum' counterinsurgency and action over the 'total situation' in rapid dominance involve simultaneous action over all dimensions of life without limit. The counterinsurgency manual, in a fairly typically statement, stresses that: 'Counterinsurgency (COIN) operations require synchronized application of military, paramilitary, political, economic, psychological, and civic actions' (COIN FM, E-5-11).
113. Weber, 'Special effects'.
114. P. Sloterdijk, 'Airquakes', Environment and planning D: society and space 27(1) (2009), pp. 41-57.
115. M. Foucault, The birth of biopolitics (trans. G. Burchell) (London, Palgrave Macmillan, 2008 [2004]). Environmental-type interventions function on a far-from-equilibrium environment by modulating the aleatory 'transversal processes' that make up that environment (p. 261).
116. See also, Massumi, 'Future birth', and Anderson, Population and affective perception, for an expansion of Foucault's brief comments on environmentality.
117. Dunlap, 'Air-minded considerations', p. 2.
118. See also Major Jon Huss on how the B52 offers 'extreme psychological effect' due to the noise, intensity and duration of airstrikes that produce what Huss terms 'significant emotional events in the lives of survivors' (p. 28).
119. J. Huss, 'Exploiting the psychological effects of airpower. A guide for the operational commander', Airpower journal 13(4) (1999), pp. 23-32.
120. R. Read, 'Irregular Warfare and the US Airforce', Air & space power journal (2007), available at: http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/apj/apj07/win07/read.ht ml (accessed 10.03.08).
121. COIN FM, E-5.
122. COIN FM, E-5.
123. COIN FM, E-6.
124. See Anderson, Population and affective perception, for an expansion on this point.
125. J. Bellflower, 'The indirect approach', Armed forces journal January (2007). Available at: http://www.armedforcesjournal.com/2007/01/2371536 (accessed 10.05.08).
126. Ibid., no pagination.
127. Galloway and Thacker, The exploit.