Re: To militarise or not to militarise

From: Alex Ferguson <abf_at_cs.ucc.ie>
Date: Sun, 21 May 2000 04:14:08 +0100 (BST)


Martin:
> Perhaps we disagree on the defition
> of'"warfare" we are using. Any conflict with the use of violence is warfare
> in the classical Clausewitizian definition. That is the one I am using.

I must prevail upon you to cease and desist doing so, then, since linguistically it's bunk (to put it in uncharacteristicly mild Fordean terms), whatever one thinks of the merits of Clausewitz as an analysis.

> [viewing everything through an economic perspective] is a strategic view.

No it isn't, not even by your interpretation, below, of 'strategy'. To ascribe an economic root cause for everything, as would the classic Marxian materialist-determinist, or certain right-wing 'think tanks' isn't necessarily at all the same as supposing some entity somewhere is doing 'strategic planning' of another single entity called 'the economy'.

> Consider though the term "strategy", this is _not_ a military term.

But it is. Concise Oxford, '1, the art of war'. Non-military senses get booted down to sense 3, and are clearly later, comparative, formation. (Etymology is at bottom from the Greek for 'to lead an army'). So it's not so unreasonable that people assume you're using a word for its primary meaning, if the context does nothing to suggest otherwise.

> I don't deny my passion is in things military, but part of that
> study brings you to view politics, economics and social + religious factors
> as being all part of the matrix of possibility.

But that's pretty much the anxiety being pondered: if your starting point is always military, then politics is just a handy excuse for starting a war (or the annoying requirement to stop them just when they're getting fun), economics is just one big baggage train, and religion is, a la Dragon Pass, the way you keep your exotic artillary correctly oil and amply loaded. Not that I really think your viewpoint _is actually_ anything like that extreme, but you do sometimes like to speak as if it were (doubtless in significant measure to wind up all we Urquharts, Barksists, and anthropowankers, naturally).

Slàn,
Alex.


Powered by hypermail