Table Of Content2935 The Biopolitics 12/9/06 11:06 Page i
The biopolitics of the war on terror
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REAPPRAISING THE POLITICAL
.
Simon Tormey and Jon Simons series editors
The times we live in are troubling, and as always theory struggles
to keep pace with events in its efforts to analyse and assess
society, culture and politics. Many of the ‘contemporary’ political
theories emerged and developed in the twentieth century
or earlier, but how well do they work at the start
of the twenty-first century?
Reappraising the Politicalrealigns political theory with its
contemporary context. The series is interdisciplinary in approach,
seeking new inspiration from both traditional sister disciplines,
and from more recent neighbours such as literary theory and
cultural studies. It encompasses an international range,
recognising both the diffusion and adaptation of Western political
thought in the rest of the world, and the impact of global
processes and non-Western ideas on Western politics.
already published
Rehinking equality: the challenge of equal citizenship
Chris Armstrong
Radical democracy: politics between abundance and lack
Lars Tønder and Lasse Thomassen (eds)
(cid:2)
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Julian Reid
THE BIOPOLITICS OF THE WAR ON
TERROR
Life struggles, liberal modernity, and the defence
of logistical societies
Manchester University Press
Manchester and New York
distributed exclusively in the USA by Palgrave
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Copyright © Julian Reid 2006
The right of Julian Reid to be identified as the author of this work has been
asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
Published byManchester University Press
Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9NR, UK
andRoom 400, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010, USA
www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk
Distributed exclusively in the USA by
Palgrave, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York,
NY 10010, USA
Distributed exclusively in Canada by
UBC Press, University of British Columbia, 2029 West Mall,
Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z2
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data applied for
ISBN 0 7190 7405 3 hardback
EAN 978 0 7190 7405 9
First published 2006
15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Typeset
by Action Publishing Technology Ltd, Gloucester
Printed in Great Britain
by Biddles Ltd, King’s Lynn
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The art of war deals with living and with moral forces.
Carl von Clausewitz, On War
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Contents
Preface and acknowledgements page ix
1 War and liberal modernity: a biopolitical critique 1
2 Logistical life: war, discipline, and the martial origins of liberal
societies 17
3 Nomadic life: war, sovereignty, and resistance to the biopolitical
imperium 40
4 Defiant life: the seductions of Terror amid the tyranny of the
human 62
5 Circulatory life: 9/11 as architectural catastrophe, and the
hypermodernity of Terror 82
6 Biopolitical life: the ‘war against war’ of the multitude 102
Epilogue 124
References 130
Index 141
[vii]
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Preface and acknowledgements
The War on Terror is currently represented in International Relations and
beyond as a conflict between political and social formations for which the secu-
rity and promotion of human life is an abiding concern and an enemy dedicated
to the destruction of the political and social conditions for the flourishing of
human life. Not simply an enemy that is motivated against the interests of
common humanity, but an enemy which in being so driven, is ready to resort to
subhuman tactics, and which therefore requires, paradoxically, a less than
human response in defence of the integrity of human life. Hence the declaration
by liberal regimes and the mobilisation of their societies for a war of funda-
mentally illiberal proportions and dimensions. A war deemed to require the
permanent mobilisation of entire societies against an enemy which threatens
their security from within. A war against an enemy which like a parasite living
off its human host, breeds in the most vulnerable areas of liberal societies,
waiting for the moment to release a pathological violence upon its otherwise
oblivious prey. A war which requires the development of new and evermore
intensive techniques with which to monitor the movements and dispositions of
the life of liberal societies themselves because it is there that the enemy festers
and will emerge to such devastating effect.
To challenge such broadly disseminated understandings this book develops a
biopolitical analysis of the War on Terror. Examining this war biopolitically
means attempting to think more rigorously about the actuality of relations
between the problems of life and politics which are constitutive of it. In devel-
oping this analysis it is especially important that we subject to critique the claim
firstly that liberal regimes do indeed exist for the security and promotion of
human life, and secondly that the terrorists now targeting liberal societies are
themselves devoid of human causes and aspirations. In essence, and as will be
argued, this is not a war in defence of the integrity of human life against an
enemy defined simply by a contradictory will for the destruction of human life.
It is a war over the political constitution of life in which the limitations of liberal
accounts of humanity are being put to the test, if not rejected outright. It is
certainly true that the future of humanity is at stake in this conflict, but only in
the sense that any resolution of it will depend on our abilities to learn to ques-
tion the limits of existing understandings of what constitutes human life and its
political potentialities. The instigation of such a line of questioning is integral to
the biopolitical analysis developed in this book.
As a struggle over the political constitution of life this war entails a substan-
tial genealogy. It can be traced back, at the very least, to the origins of liberal
[ix]
