Perfect War and its Contestations

Abstract

Drawing on Foucault’s notion of ‘regime of truth’ this chapter examines the spaces of contention through which watchdog organizations such as Airwars make counter-claims to the US-led Coalition air-strike campaign against IS in Syria and Iraq. The Coalition’s sanctioning of information, its discursive embracement of watchdog criticism, as well as its adoption of specialist technologies, worked to reinforce a regime of truth in which remote warfare is portrayed as ‘precise’ and ‘caring’: a form of perfect war which saves lives, not just of ‘our own’ but also of ‘civilian others’. We outline how this regime of truth about remote wars promotes violence rather than limits it. This prompts us to look at the ontology of remote war, and its capacity to ward off political questions on how it has transformative effects and (re)produces and sustains regimes of power.