Sebastian Kaempf

The mediatisation of war in a transforming global media landscape

Before the rise of digital new media technology in 2002, ‘old’ media at its heart displayed a fundamental division between sender and receiver, a division which for a long time had structurally, materially and politically conditioned the nature of the relationship between ‘old’ media and war. Within the recently emerging digital new media technology, however, this age-old separation between sender and receiver has been eroded. Thus, alongside traditional media platforms, an entirely new form of media technology has arisen. This development has transformed the hitherto multipolar nature of the old media landscape and has led to a heteropolar global media landscape, in which the relationship between media and war has been altered. By exploring how digital new media poles are forming and old media poles are evolving, this article examines how this seismic shift in the global media landscape requires a redefinition of the understanding of the nature of the relationship between media and conflict today.

Russia: A Part of the West or Apart from the West?

Outlining the century-old debates about ‘What is Russia?’, this article — by drawing on a variety of sources such as fiction, culture, cartoons and identity — shows how Russian and Western answers to this question have impacted on each other. To do so, the article first examines the extent to which Russian society — ever since the Mongolian Yoke — has been culturally torn between Westerniser and anti-Westerniser positions. It then complements the insights into Russia’s self-reflective identity formation in two ways: by illustrating how Russia, in the West, has become portrayed as a caricature of the Western consciousness and by demonstrating how the Russian ‘Self’, in return, has been defined through the prism of Western expectations.

Reimagining Communities: Opening up History to the Memory of Others

There comes a time when transmitting the history of a national past fails the context of the political present. France and Germany have shared tortuous historical experiences, yet the two are at the forefront of an unprecedented pedagogical development: for the first time ever, two nation-states have created a common history textbook that is used in their senior secondary schools. As such, each country, to borrow Ernst Gellner’s formula, has abandoned – qua this textbook – its monopoly of legitimate education. Histoire/Geschichte detaches history from its exclusive national past and introduces the learners to a post-national present. It speaks in a tone that is demanded by a different time and by the new conditions of peoples who are living in a common political space. This article reflects on the meaning and reach of this precedent by first analysing the explicit political and pedagogical explanations inherent to the book. It then identifies and investigates some of the less evident effects of the textbook relating to rethinking war and history, rethinking the monopoly of education, rethinking national identity, and to offering another path to rapprochement.

Double standards in US warfare: Exploring the historical legacy of civilian protection and the complex nature of the moral-legal nexus

This article investigates how – by breaking with the historical double standards regarding civilian protection in conflicts – by the end of the twentieth century, US warfare has come to comply with International Humanitarian Law (IHL). Yet, civilians are still being killed. This has sparked controversies over what constitutes legitimate targeting practices and as to whether higher levels of civilian protection could be achieved. Through an engagement with these debates, including an exploration of the evolution of the norm of non-combatant immunity with specific reference to US warfare, the article argues that IHL does not provide fully satisfactory answers to these issues as it is too permissive in relation to the killing of civilians. The article proposes that more stringent moral guidelines, such as those underpinning the idea of ‘due care’, have the potential to go much further in providing protection for the innocent in war.

Crisis in the laws of war? Beyond compliance and effectiveness

How can we tell what state the laws of war are in today, and whether they face exceptional pressures? Standard accounts of the condition of this body of law focus on problems of compliance and effectiveness. In particular, there is a dominant international legal diagnosis that most non-compliance is accounted for by the prevalence of non-state belligerents in irregular or asymmetric conflicts. We propose that any such diagnosis is partial at best. A focus on compliance and effectiveness tells us nothing about the reasons for actor behaviour, or about its impact on the regime. We advance a different conceptual framework, exploring the complex connections between compliance, effectiveness and legitimacy. We propose an alternative diagnostic model that places legitimacy at the heart of the analysis, treating it as causal, not simply symptomatic. This highlights when violations result in legitimacy costs for the individual actor, as opposed to reaching a tipping point when violations cumulatively impose legitimacy costs on the regime itself. We argue for the need to move beyond discussions framed by compliance and effectiveness, and towards the forms, reasons and reception of non-compliant behaviour, as this provides a truly social measure of the state of the law. In order to illustrate this, we examine three distinct types of challengers — Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, the US and Russia — and present them as, respectively, revisionist, rejectionist and denialist threats to the regime. Unusually, the laws of war today face challenges on all three fronts simultaneously.

Lost through non-translation: bringing Clausewitz's writings on ‘new wars’ back in

While Carl von Clausewitz has generally been respected as one of the most profound philosophers of war, his expertise has been regarded as somewhat limited if not even irrelevant to the so-called ‘new wars’ of the post-Cold War world. Many scholars in international relations have claimed that ‘new wars’ are essentially ‘post-Clausewitzian’ and ‘post-trinitarian’ in nature, meaning that they are no longer fathomable through a Clausewitzian framework. However Clausewitzs earlier writings were nearly exclusively dedicated to guerrilla warfare, or what he called ‘small wars’. These writings have been largely overlooked by many analysts of contemporary conflicts. By drawing on his rare and untranslated writings, the article uncovers a critical part of Clausewitzs expertise in asymmetric warfare and shows that, far from being irrelevant in an age where interstate warfare is increasingly being replaced by conflicts between states and semi-/non-state actors, Clausewitzs philosophical writings actually shed new light into the particular interactive dynamics generated during wars waged under conditions of asymmetry.

Violence and victory: Guerrilla warfare, 'authentic self-affirmation' and the overthrow of the colonial state

Abstract This contribution critically investigates the ideas underpinning the armed struggle of colonial subjects against colonial states in the middle decades of the 20th century. It focuses in particular on two of the most influential texts that inspired and guided violent anti-colonial resistance, The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon and On Guerrilla Warfare by Mao Zedong. Both Fanon and Mao provided powerful analyses of the violent (psychological and military) underpinnings of colonialism and articulated strategies of resistance. This contribution argues that the persuasiveness of Maos and Fanons thought stemmed from their deep dialectical (ie Hegelian) understanding of war and colonialism. By demonstrating the dialectical foundations of Maos and Fanons thought—inspired intellectually by their readings of Carl von Clausewitz and Jean-Paul Sartre—the contribution illustrates how their understanding allowed them not only to fathom the interactive dynamics at the core of war and colonialism, but also to devise successful ways of unseating colonial power. Yet, while they shared a common belief in violent anti-colonial struggles, they nevertheless diverged fundamentally in their respective conceptions of violence. Mao (through Clausewitz) held an instrumental view of violence, whereas Fanon (through Sartre) understood violence in existential terms. This meant, as is argued here, that their respective conceptions of violence would not necessarily, on their own, have been sufficient to bring colonialism to an end. Taken together, however, their instrumental and intrinsic conceptions of violence complemented each other and helped armed anti-colonial struggles succeed around the globe.

Conversations in International Relations: interview with Andrew Linklater

This in-depth conversation with Professor Andrew Linklater engages with his academic biography, his intellectual contribution to the field of International Relations (IR) and his reflections on the current state of, and challenges facing, the discipline of (IR). It thereby traces his biography from his undergraduate days in Aberdeen, via his first lectureships in Australia, back to the United Kingdom and eventually to Aberystwyth University; it engages with his main oeuvres from the 1982 book Men and Citizens in the Theory of International Relations to his most recent work on The Problem of Harm in World Politics, and covers the development of IR as a global discipline from the 1970s until today.

US warfare in Somalia and the trade-off between casualty-aversion and civilian protection

This article examines the ways in which the two normative concerns of casualty-aversion and civilian protection influenced US military strategy in the particular context of the asymmetric conflict in Somalia in the early 1990s. The article critically evaluates US military operations through the prism of international humanitarian law and examines whether American forces started prioritizing casualty-aversion over the safeguarding of Somali civilians. Finally, by drawing on emerging moral guidelines (such as Michael Walzers idea of ‘due care’), the article examines whether lower numbers of Somali civilian deaths could have been achieved if marginal increases to the risks faced by US soldiers had been accepted.

‘A relationship of mutual exploitation’: the evolving ties between the Pentagon, Hollywood, and the commercial gaming sector

ABSTRACT This article examines the close historical and contemporary ties between the Pentagon and Hollywood from the 1920s until today. Drawing on the US military as an in-depth case study, the article shows the extent to which key military actors view the conduct of war as an arena that stretches well beyond the actual battlefields and includes the production of war movies, film documentaries, computer simulations and first person shooter video games. The article begins with an examination of the ‘Military-Industrial Complex’ and its evolution into what experts have dubbed ‘The Military-Industrial-Media-Entertainment Network (MIME-Net).’ It then focuses on the military’s relationship with the filming industry, with the production of reality TV, and the commercial gaming industry. It thereby investigates, through in-depth interviews with key stakeholders, how this phenomenon has evolved over time and into new areas where games, simulators, and game technologies cross the boundaries between militaries, the defense industry, Hollywood and the commercial gaming sector. And it shows how the advent of digital new technologies have opened new platforms through which militaries seek to boost recruitment, to (re)write military history, and to influence the portrayal of the armed forces in the eyes of the public.