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| 1 |
ID:
155811
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| Summary/Abstract |
South Asia has garnered much attention in international security scholarship and policymaking, not least due to the number of protracted armed conflicts in the region. Yet, the dominant discourse on regional security in South Asia fails to adequately capture the insecurities that undermine the everyday lives and livelihoods of a majority of South Asians. The article first interrogates this prevalent discourse to reveal the inadequacies of traditional state-centric regional security analysis in South Asia. Drawing on critical approaches to security, including concepts that have been developed in the region, it then offers a reconceptualization of regional security. A brief case study discussion on food insecurity is employed to develop, and demonstrate the relevance of, such an approach to identifying and addressing contemporary security imperatives in South Asia. In doing so, the article presents a critical approach to regional security that is deeply rooted in South Asian experiences.
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| 2 |
ID:
155815
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| Summary/Abstract |
How will the robot age transform warfare? What geopolitical futures are being imagined by the US military? This article constructs a robotic futurology to examine these crucial questions. Its central concern is how robots – driven by leaps in artificial intelligence and swarming – are rewiring the spaces and logics of US empire, warfare, and geopolitics. The article begins by building a more-than-human geopolitics to de-center the role of humans in conflict and foreground a worldly understanding of robots. The article then analyzes the idea of US empire, before speculating upon how and why robots are materializing new forms of proxy war. A three-part examination of the shifting spaces of US empire then follows: (1) Swarm Wars explores the implications of miniaturized drone swarming; (2) Roboworld investigates how robots are changing US military basing strategy and producing new topological spaces of violence; and (3) The Autogenic Battle-Site reveals how autonomous robots will produce emergent, technologically event-ful sites of security and violence – revolutionizing the battlespace. The conclusion reflects on the rise of a robotic US empire and its consequences for democracy.
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| 3 |
ID:
155810
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| Summary/Abstract |
In an era in which scholars have become increasingly skeptical about the concept of exceptionalism, this article argues that instead of rejecting it, we should rework it: moving beyond seeing it primarily as a security practice by recognizing the crucial role of political economic exceptionalism. Drawing on Foucault’s later lectures on security, population, and biopolitics, this article suggests that we can understand exceptionalist moves in both security and economic contexts as efforts to manage and secure a population. Focusing on three key moments in the production of exceptional politics – defining the limit of normal politics, suspending the norm, and putting the exception into practice – I examine the parallels, intersections, and tensions between political economic and security exceptionalism, using the concept of economic exceptionalism to make sense of the 2008 global financial crisis. Taking seriously Foucault’s insights into the political economic character of liberal government holds out the promise of providing scholars in the fields of both critical security studies and cultural political economy with a richer understanding of the complex dynamics of exceptionalist politics – a promise that is particularly valuable at the present political juncture.
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| 4 |
ID:
155814
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| Summary/Abstract |
The King Abdullah II Special Operations Training Center (KASOTC) was financed and established by the US Department of Defense, is operated by a US private business, and is owned by the Jordanian army. It not only offers a base for the training of international Special Forces and Jordanian border guards, but also for military adventure holidays, corporate leadership programs, and stunt training for actors. This article provides an analysis of the processes and technologies involved in US–Jordanian military collaboration by investigating some of the ways in which war is simulated, marketed, and played at KASOTC. Particular focus is paid to the stark biopolitical judgments about the different worth of human subjects and their role in intersecting processes of militarization and commercialization. The article argues that US–Jordanian military collaboration at KASOTC is marked by the simultaneous blurring and reinforcement of boundaries, as commercial security is moralized and imagined moral hierarchies marketized. While war at KASOTC is an interactive and consumable event for some, it engenders deadly realities for others. The article is an empirically-grounded contribution to critical security studies based on interviews and observations made during a visit to KASOTC in early 2013.
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| 5 |
ID:
155813
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Research in conflict studies and environmental security has largely focused on the mechanisms through which the environment and natural resources foster conflict or contribute to peacebuilding. An understudied area of research, however, concerns the ways in which warfare has targeted civilian infrastructure with long-term effects on human welfare and ecosystems. This article seeks to fill this gap. We focus on better understanding the conflict destruction of water, sanitation, waste, and energy infrastructures, which we term environmental infrastructures, by drawing on an author-compiled database of the post-2011 wars in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). While research across the social sciences has examined the targeting of civilians and environmental destruction during wars, including the issue of urbicide, we expand the study of targeting environmental infrastructure to (1) examine the role of different types of actors (international vs. subnational), (2) document the type of infrastructure targeted, form of attack, and impacts, and (3) situate increased targeting of environmental infrastructure in the changing context of war-making in the MENA. Comparatively analyzing the conflict zones of Libya, Syria, and Yemen, we show that targeting environmental infrastructure is an increasingly prevalent form of war-making in the MENA, with long-term implications for rebuilding states, sustaining livelihoods, and resolving conflicts.
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