Imaginaries of omniscience: Automating intelligence in the US Department of Defense.

The current reanimation of artificial intelligence includes a resurgence of investment in automating military intelligence on the part of the US Department of Defense. A series of programs set forth a technopolitical imaginary of fully integrated, comprehensive and real-time 'situational awareness' across US theaters of operation. Locating this imaginary within the history of 'closed world' discourse, I offer a critical reading of dominant scholarship within military circles that sets out the military's cybernetic model of situational awareness in the form of the widely referenced Observe, Orient, Decide, Act or OODA Loop. I argue that the loop's promise of dynamic homeostasis is held in place by the enduring premise of objectivist knowledge, enabled through a war apparatus that treats the contingencies and ambiguities of relations on the ground as noise from which a stable and unambiguous signal can be extracted. In contrast, recent challenges to the closed-world imaginary, based on critical scholarship and investigative journalism, suggest that the aspiration to closure is an engine for the continued destructiveness of US interventions and the associated regeneration of enmity. To challenge these technopolitics of violence we need a radically different kind of situational awareness, one that recognizes the place of ignorance in perpetuating the project of militarism. Only that kind of awareness can inform the public debate required to re-envision a future place for the US in the world, founded in alternative investments in demilitarization and commitments to our collective security.

Apartheid drone: Infrastructures of militarism and the hidden genealogies of the South African Seeker.

In the 1980s and 1990s, South Africa was considered a global leader in the development of unmanned aircraft largely because of the Seeker, a drone created by the state-controlled armaments industry during apartheid. This article examines how military power, state-enforced racial hierarchies, and global exchange are made visible and obscured through the drone's unmanned system. It advances the concept of drone infrastructure, which updates theories of the drone that focus on optics and verticality. Drone infrastructure studies the web of relations organized by aircraft systems and articulates how the interplay of visibility and invisibility affectively and materially structures drone systems. The study starts with the 'invisible' transfer of drone technology that led to the Seeker, pointing to a shared genealogy of warfare linking South Africa, Israel, and the United States, as well as the 'secret' use of the Seeker in the South African Border Wars. It then turns to how, in the post-apartheid era, the Seeker was refashioned as a technology of national protection and democratic advance, a 'visible' symbol of the new state. Contemporary efforts to use drone aircraft in South Africa for wildlife conservation in the 2010s aim to overwrite these earlier uses, describing the air platform as international aid. Yet, the Seeker's militarized infrastructure continues to shape drone use and the logics of white supremacy persist in the networks of relations organized by contemporary drone use in South Africa.

The geopolitics of militarism and humanitarianism.

In this article, we trace the interconnections between humanitarianism and militarism. We highlight the significance of a geographical perspective in emphasizing the spatial and multiscalar dimensions of this changing relationship, particularly in Western states. In doing so, we reveal the violent geographies produced through militarized humanitarianism and demonstrate the ways political violence can be obscured through invocations of humanitarianism. We look at five overlapping lines of enquiry: the way humanitarianism is used to modulate war; the rationalization of military intervention as humanitarian; military deployment in response to humanitarian crises; the military take-up of humanitarian-style practices; and weapons development and humanitarianism.

The Effect of War Commemorations on Support for Diplomacy: A Five-Nation Study.

We remember the past in order not to repeat it, but does remembrance of war in fact shape support for military or diplomatic approaches to international conflict? In seven samples from five countries (collected online, total N = 2,493), we examined support for military and diplomatic approaches to conflict during war commemorations (e.g., Veterans Day). During war commemorations in the United States, support for diplomacy increased, whereas support for military approaches did not change. We found similar results in the United Kingdom and Australia on Remembrance Day, but not in Germany, or France, nor in Australia on Anzac Day. Furthermore, support for diplomacy was predicted by concern about loss of ingroup military lives during war, independently of concern about harm to outgroup civilians. These studies expand our understanding of how collective memories of war may be leveraged to promote diplomatic approaches to contemporary geopolitical conflict.

Military surgery as national romance: the memory of British heroic fortitude at Waterloo.

This paper shows the ways that tales of stoicism during surgery at the Battle of Waterloo came to be a significant part of the ideological framework of Romantic Militarism. Celebrating the killing of enemies clashed with ideals of politeness, but hailing a soldier's powers of endurance in surgery was an acceptable way of extolling courage, framing lived experience of agony into narratives of exalted pain, masculine fortitude and quasi-religious patriotic feeling. In Britain, an extensive discourse emerged about the supposed Britishness of surgical sangfroid at Waterloo, providing a narrative of national superiority in the decades of imperial expansion that followed.

As especificidades do casal militar: uma contribuição à psicoterapia conjugal / The couple military specificities: a contribution to couple psychotherapy

Este artigo tem como objetivo refletir sobre as especificidades do casal militar com o intuito de contribuir para o atendimento em psicoterapia desses casais. O interesse em aprofundar nesse campo da conjugalidade é devido à atuação da primeira autora no contexto militar, atendendo em psicoterapia de casal os militares de um específico braço das forças armadas brasileiras. Ao atender aos casais de militares, percebeu-se que há aspectos singulares na dinâmica conjugal atravessados pelo contexto militar. Os afastamentos temporários por missões, transferências, autorrepresentação de solidez moral, diferenças de poder, pequena rede de apoio são questões discutidas no artigo. Espera-se que esse trabalho possa contribuir para a atuação da psicologia com casais de militares, atentando para os atravessamentos do militarismo na dinâmica conjugal.

This article aims to reflect on the specificities of the military couple with the intention of contributing to couple psychotherapy. The interest in deepening in this field of conjugality is due to the experience of the first author in the military context, attending in couple psychotherapy the military of a specific arm of the Brazilian army. The research indicates that there are singular aspects in the conjugal dynamics crossed by the military context. The temporary leave, city changes, self-representation of moral solidity, power differences, small support network are issues discussed in the article. It is hoped that this work can contribute to the work of psychology with military couples, paying attention to the crossings of militarism in the conjugal dynamics.

'Treatment Not Trident': Medical Activism, Health Inequality and Anti-Militarism in 1980s Britain.

In 1985, Britain's chief group of medical anti-nuclear weapons activists, the Medical Campaign Against Nuclear Weapons (MCANW), launched its 'Treatment, Not Trident' (TNT) campaign. TNT called on the Thatcher Government to cancel the acquisition of the Trident nuclear weapon system and divert those funds to the National Health Service and foreign aid instead. Using TNT, this article makes some more general observations about key aspects of the history, nature and ideologies of medical activism in relation to anti-militarism and health inequality. Alongside a conceptualisation of 'medical activism', it offers an examination of chief ways in which the strategic mobilisation of health and welfare priorities, and a growing interest in developing nations enabled MCANW to reach a larger audience. Moreover, higher levels of professionalisation, politicisation and inclusivity contributed to TNT's success, making it a crucial moment in the development of both MCANW and medical activism in general.

Impasses da psicanálise em uma instituição militar / Impasses to psychoanalysis in a military institution / Impases del psicoanálisis en una institución militar

Este artigo é fruto de reflexões acerca da inserção institucional da psicanálise e do lugar do analista num campo bastante particular, uma instituição policial militar. Buscando articular algumas coordenadas que norteiam o militarismo e enquadram seus membros, valemo-nos da teoria dos quatro discursos de Lacan para refletir sobre os laços sociais instituídos nesse ambiente. Tal articulação visa a estabelecer os termos da discussão aqui proposta quanto aos impasses à circulação do discurso analítico. A partir dos impasses detectados na circulação deste discurso - o qual incide no sentido inverso à anulação subjetiva decorrente da fixação à identidade policial - e em seu entrecruzamento com os discursos vigentes nessa instituição, abordamos o desejo do analista como operador clínico crucial. Examinamos como, a partir da transferência na direção do tratamento, algo do sujeito do inconsciente pode ser mobilizado como efeito da fala endereçada ao analista. Em tal reflexão, leva-se em conta uma questão fundamental na experiência: a possibilidade de sustentar a posição de analista ocupando um posto de oficial na hierarquia da corporação.

This article arises out of reflections concerning the institutional insertion of psychoanalysis and the psychoanalyst's place in a rather particular field, a military police institution. As we seek to articulate aspects that shape militarism and bind its members, we employ Lacan's four discourses theory to reflect on the social bonds instituted by such an environment. This articulation intends to establish the terms of the argument proposed here concerning the impasses reached by the spread of the discourse of psychoanalysis. From impasses detected in the circulation of psychoanalytic discourse - which acts in the opposite direction to the subjective self-effacement that stems from the attachment to a police officer identity - and its intersections with the official discourse of the institution, we address the desire of the psychoanalyst as a crucial clinical operator. We examine how, as the transfer affects the course of treatment, some part of the unconscious subject can be mobilized as an effect of the speech directed to the psychoanalyst. In this reflection, we take into account a fundamental issue concerning the matter at hand: the possibility to sustain a psychoanalyst's stance at the same time as being a member of officer rank in the corps hierarchy.

Este artículo es resultado de reflexiones acerca de la inserción institucional del psicoanálisis y del lugar del analista en un campo bastante particular, una institución policial militar. Buscando articular algunas coordenadas que guían el militarismo y encuadran a sus miembros, nos valemos de la teoría de los cuatro discursos de Lacan para reflexionar sobre los lazos sociales instituidos en este ambiente. Tal articulación pretende establecer los términos de la discusión aquí propuesta en cuanto a los impases a la circulación del discurso analítico. A partir de los impases detectados en la circulación de este discurso - lo que incide en el sentido inverso a la anulación subjetiva resultante de la fijación a la identidad policial - y su entrecruzamiento con los discursos vigentes en esta institución, abordamos el deseo del analista como operador clínico crucial. Examinamos cómo, a partir de la transferencia en la dirección del tratamiento, algo del sujeto del inconsciente puede ser movilizado como efecto del habla dirigida al analista. En tal reflexión, se tiene en cuenta una cuestión fundamental en la experiencia: la posibilidad de sostener la posición de analista ocupando un rango de oficial en la jerarquía de la corporación.

An assemblage approach to liquid warfare: AFRICOM and the 'hunt' for Joseph Kony.

The Western state-led turn to remote forms of military intervention as recently deployed in the Middle East and across Africa is often explained as resulting from risk aversion (avoidance of ground combat), materiality ('the force of matter') or the adoption of a networked operational logic by major military powers, mimicking the 'hit-and-run' tactics of their enemies. Although recognizing the mobilizing capacities of these phenomena, we argue that the new military interventionism is prompted by a more fundamental transformation, grounded in the spatial and temporal reconfiguration of war. We see a resort to 'liquid warfare' as a form of military interventionism that shuns direct control of territory and populations and its cumbersome order-building and order-maintaining responsibilities, focusing instead on 'shaping' the international security environment through remote technology, flexible operations and military-to-military partnerships. We draw upon assemblage as a heuristic device and the case of the US Africa Command (AFRICOM) to flesh out the complex and fluid nature of liquid warfare and the ways by which power operates across space. We outline how the forging of a transnational military assemblage in the name of 'hunting Kony' allowed for the buildup of an archipelago of military bases and operational capabilities across Africa, which serve as hubs for the monitoring, disrupting and containment of potential risks and dangers.

"Juárez no es cuartel, fuera ejército de el". Jóvenes contra la militarización y la violencia en Ciudad Juárez / "Juarez is not a military base: we want the army out". Young people against militarization and violence in Ciudad Juarez / "Juarez não é quartel: fora militares!". Juventude organizada contra a militarização e a violência na Cidade de Juarez

Resumen (descriptivo): El objetivo de este artículo es realizar un análisis del movimiento social contra la militarización y la violencia en Ciudad Juárez desde una perspectiva de juventud e intergeneracional. A partir del trabajo etnográfico, las entrevistas en profundidad y la revisión hemerográfica se pretende indagar en torno a ¿cómo surge y se desarrolla el movimiento contra la militarización y la violencia?, ¿cómo participaron los/as jóvenes en dichas movilizaciones?, y ¿qué discursos, acciones y estrategias desplegaron los/as jóvenes para oponerse a la presencia militar en la ciudad? Uno de los principales hallazgos es que los/as jóvenes ocuparon un importante papel en la creación de nuevos marcos interpretativos y repertorios de acción que se opusieron tanto a los discursos oficiales que justificaba la presencia militar en la ciudad como a los discursos despolitizadores del diálogo y la paz sin justicia.

Abstract (descriptive): The main purpose of this paper is to investigate the social movement against militarization and violence in Ciudad Juarez - a city on the northern border of México with the U.S. -, through inter-generational and youth perspectives. The article describes the author's ethnographic work, depth interviews and hemerographic research in order to better answer questions such as, "How has the anti-militarization movement emerged and continues to develop in this context?; What discourse, actions and strategies are implemented by young people during the struggle against the military occupation in their city? The research finds that organized young people in this context occupy an important place in the creation of new interpretative boundaries and alternative repertoires of action, that stand both against the official rhetoric of justifying the military occupation, as well as against those that work to depoliticize the dialogue or reclaim "peace" without demanding justice.

Resumo (descritivo): O objetivo desse artigo é analisar o movimento social contra a militarização e a violência na Cidade de Juarez (Fronteira com Estados Unidos, ao Norte do México), do ponto de vista da juventude e intergeracional. A partir do trabalho etnográfico, realização de entrevistas à profundidade e revisão hemerográfica, pretende-se indagar: Como esse movimento contra a militarização surge e se desenvolve; e quais discursos, ações e estratégias foram implantadas pela juventude, em franca oposição à presença militar nessa cidade fronteiriça. O principal argumento que emerge do presente estudo pode ser resumido da seguinte maneira: A juventude, nesse contexto, ocupa um importante papel na criação de novos marcos interpretativos, por sua vez, relacionados a repertórios alternativos de ação política, que se opõe de forma rotunda, tanto aos discursos oficiais que justificam a presença militar, como àqueles despolitizadores do diálogo e de uma ideia de "paz" sem (outra ideia de) justiça.

Militarism and globalization: Is there an empirical link?

Despite the fact that previous studies have extensively investigated the causal nexus between military expenditure and economic growth in both developed and developing countries, those studies have not considered the role of globalization. The aim of this study is to examine the relationship between militarism and globalization for the top 15 military expenditure spenders over the period 1990-2012. The bootstrap panel Granger causality approach is utilized to detect the direction of causality. The results show that military expenditure and overall globalization are causally related in most of the countries under review. This implies that countries experiencing greater globalization have relatively large increases in militarization over the past 20 years. The policy implication of the findings is that greater military spending by a country increases the likelihood of military conflict in the future, the anticipation of which discourages globalization.

Between security and military identities: The case of Israeli security experts.

The relationship between private security professionals and the military in Israel is complex. While there is growing attention to the fact that security and military actors and their activities are becoming increasingly blurred, the Israeli case shows something different. In this ground-up analysis of the relationship between private security practices and the military, I investigate its constant negotiation by private security professionals through their identification with and differentiation from the military, whereby they reconfigure the meaning of military capital. This identity work should be understood, I propose, within the strongly militarist context of Israeli society, where military capital is highly valued. I argue that actors who exit the military system feel the need to demonstrate the added value of their work in the private sector in order for it to gain value in the light of the symbolic capital given to the military. I analyse these processes as leading to a new kind of militarism, which includes security skills and ideas about professionalism. Such an approach sheds new light on the ways in which security actors can actively reconfigure the workings of military capital in and outside the nation-state and produce a different kind of militarism.

The Impact of Militarism, Patriarchy, and Culture on Israeli Women's Reproductive Health and Well-Being.

PURPOSE: In this paper, we situate and frame Israeli women's reproductive health within the social, historical, political, cultural, and geographical context of Israeli women's lives. METHODS: We used a theoretical review in this paper. RESULTS: Militarism, patriarchy, and cultural values heavily shape and influence Jewish and Arab women's access to and experience of reproductive health when it comes to the imperative to have children, pregnancy, birth, access to contraception and abortion, and other reproductive healthcare services. We discuss five main factors pertaining to Israeli women's reproductive health including (1) fertility and emphasis on reproduction; (2) infertility; (3) pregnancy, birth, and miscarriage; (4) reproductive rights including contraception and abortion; and (5) maternity leave and accessible childcare. CONCLUSIONS: Israel is a pro-natalist country, in which both Jewish and Arab women share many of the consequences of the social imperative to have children. Though Arab women, as part of their double minority status, are exposed to more mental health risks pre- and postpartum, the personal and public reproductive health decisions and reproductive healthcare services are largely shaped by similar social forces. These include the patriarchal and religious culture that dictates a value system that highly cherishes motherhood, and within the military political context of the on-going Israeli-Palestinian conflict and past social and political traumas. We address four major gaps that need to be addressed in order to improve Israeli women's reproductive health and well-being that include the neoliberal gap, the information gap, the reproductive health services gap, and the leadership and policy gap.

Trump, Brexit, Right-wing Anti-globalisation, and An Uncertain Future for Public Health.

Global public health is intimately linked with political, economic and social determinants. The current global order has been built on the assumption that the globalisation agenda shared by political elites of the last several decades will continue. Individuals, businesses and countries have all made decisions, many of them linked to health, based on this assumption. The election of Donald Trump to the US presidency and the vote in Britain to exit the European Union exemplify a recent wave of right-wing anti-globalisation, which has risen in much of the West. The right-wing anti-globalisation movement will substantially affect global health through four pathways. Restrictions on trade will dampen economic growth and could diminish food security and the availability of medical supplies. Xenophobia will harm mental health through the lived experience of minorities, and will elevate the risk of economic and military conflict between countries. Increased defence expenditure in a time of limited government budgets will constrict funding available for healthcare and the social determinants of health. Mistrust of international treaties, including for climate change, will undermine the Paris Agreement and hasten greenhouse gas emissions. Without rapid mitigation, climate change could devastate population health globally through a range of mechanisms, including diminished food security and increased violent conflict. These would amplify many of the other health effects of right-wing anti-globalisation. By emphasising the shared humanity of all people, population health offers an antidote to the narrow focus of right-wing anti-globalisation.

Gregório Bezerra: professor de educação física, revolucionário, comunista e torturado nas duas ditaduras do Brasil / Gregório Bezerra: Physical Education teacher, revolutionary, communist and tortured in two dictatorships in Brazil / Gregório Bezerra, profesor de educación física, revolucionario, comunista y torturado en las dos dictaduras de Brasil

Resumo O presente artigo busca recontar a história de Gregório Bezerra, cuja trajetória é marcada pelo seu envolvimento no movimento comunista ao longo do século XX, por meio de um aspecto singular de sua vida: o fato de ser professor de educação física, formado num período fortemente marcado pela tendência militarista. Com essa passagem do personagem central deste texto, buscamos relacionar o trato com a historiografia na educação física por meio de tendências e contratendências.

Abstract This article seeks to retell the story of Gregory Bezerra, whose career is marked by his involvement in the communist movement throughout the twentieth century, through a singular aspect of his life: the fact of being a physical education teacher, formed a period strongly marked by militaristic trend. Through this passage the central character of this text, resignify the deal with historiography in Physical Education through trends and counter-trends.

Resumen El presente artículo tiene como objetivo contar la historia de Gregório Bezerra, cuya trayectoria estuvo marcada por su implicación en el movimiento comunista a lo largo del siglo XX gracias a un aspecto singular de su vida: el hecho de ser profesor de educación física, formado en un período fuertemente marcado por la tendencia militarista. Por medio de esta experiencia del personaje central de ese texto, buscamos replantear el trato con la historiografía en educación física a través de las tendencias y las contratendencias.

Ethical Responsibility for the Social Production of Tuberculosis.

Approximately one in two hundred persons in the Marshall Islands have active tuberculosis (TB). We examine the historical antecedents of this situation in order to assign ethical responsibility for the present situation. Examining the antecedents in terms of Galtung's dialectic of personal versus structural violence, we can identify instances in the history of the Marshall Islands when individual subjects made decisions (personal violence) with large-scale ecologic, social, and health consequences. The roles of medical experimenters, military commanders, captains of the weapons industry in particular, and industrial capitalism in general (as the cause of global warming) are examined. In that, together with Lewontin, we also identify industrial capitalism as the cause of tuberculosis, we note that the distinction between personal versus structural violence is difficult to maintain. By identifying the cause of the tuberculosis in the Marshall Islands, we also identify what needs be done to treat and prevent it.

'This place isn't worth the left boot of one of our boys': Geopolitics, militarism and memoirs of the Afghanistan war.

This paper argues for the continued significance of the text as a source and focus in critical geopolitical inquiry. It establishes the utility of the military memoir in explorations of popular contemporary geopolitical imaginaries, and considers the memoir as a vector of militarism. The paper examines the memoirs written by military personnel about service in Afghanistan with the British armed forces, specifically about deployments to Helmand province between 2006 and 2012. The paper explores how Afghanistan is scripted through these texts, focussing on the explanations for deployment articulated by their authors, on the representations they contain and promote about other combatants and about civilian non-combatants, and the constitution and expression of danger in the spaces and places of military action which these texts construct and convey. The paper then turns to consider how a reading of the military memoir with reference to the genre of testimonio might extend and inform our understanding and use of these texts as a source for exploring popular geopolitics and militarism.