A key provision in just war theory counsels that it is unjust to engage in conflict without a rea... more A key provision in just war theory counsels that it is unjust to engage in conflict without a reasonable expectation of success. This is often imbued with an exclusive focus on achievability, such that success is connected to an a priori ethical end. This chapter challenges the focus on achievement by untangling the process from the ends. We argue that the most powerful political processes do not have the ‘finality’ so actively sought in ‘winning’ an international conflict. Instead, the process of cultivating finality through victory in war is too often dependent upon an assumed moral outcome driven through the politically, historically, and affectively determinative presentations of the past, presented in the visual and metaphorical scars of victory and defeat. Thus, scars of violence, visceral instances in which conflicts, regardless of outcome, are continually open, perpetuate interpretations and exist independent of attempts to achieve finality through their politicized use.
Libya, the Responsibility to Protect and the Future of Humanitarian Intervention, 2013
The March 2011 NATO intervention in Libya has been widely touted as evidence of a new internation... more The March 2011 NATO intervention in Libya has been widely touted as evidence of a new international norm that has come about as a result of advocacy of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) principle (Ban 2011; Gerber, 2011; Adams, 2011). Likewise, the Libya intervention has been characterized as an ‘unprecedented moment’ that is indicative of a new commitment and consensus by states that they have an obligation — indeed, a responsibility — to protect people who are being grossly abused by their own government (Williams 2011: 249). In contrast to the position that the Libya intervention is somehow groundbreaking or indicates the emergence of a new norm of humanitarian intervention that has been empowered by R2P advocacy, we argue that what enabled the Libya intervention is essentially an international normative environment that was brought about by precedents set during humanitarian interventions in the 1990s, while its proximate causes were the unique political and empirical circumstances that surrounded the Libya crisis. What supplemented this similarity in normative environments and confluence of political factors was a generation of policy analysts, advocates and practitioners who used the failures of the 1990s as a set of formative experiences that provided shortcut comparisons to springboard the Libya intervention.
Following the 2004 establishment of the World War II memorial in Washington DC, itself a product ... more Following the 2004 establishment of the World War II memorial in Washington DC, itself a product of the collective re-commemoration of the so-called 'Greatest Generation' of WWII veterans in the US, nonprofit organizations began the practice of 'Honor flights'. These flights transported US veterans of the Second World War to Washington DC to visit that memorial and other commemorative sites, meet with Congressional members, and return to their local airports to great fanfare and celebration. The practice has evolved to incorporate Korean War and now Vietnam War veterans. As honor flights include much more than the veterans themselves, and as it has become an affectively charged festival for local communities to 'honor' their veterans during periods of unresolved wartimes, I articulate the Honor Flight as a treatment for-but also a symptom of-US ontological insecurity in the 21st Century. Honor flights are celebratory, judgmental, and political micro-practices that reflect and reproduce US militarism in ways that will likely outlast the wartimes of the 21st century United States. Along with other micro-practices of US ontological (in)security, Honor Flights threaten to destabilize the politics of military intervention hereafter, and encourage the extension of or inauguration of new times of war.
This paper contributes to this special issue by examining the existentialist themes re-emerging i... more This paper contributes to this special issue by examining the existentialist themes re-emerging in Ontological Security Studies (OSS) and does so by proposing an under-explored and overlapping terrain regarding the function of myths and ontological security. What Blumenberg calls the ‘absolutism of reality’ becomes something to avoid through the process of telling, retelling, and adapting myths to suit our existential needs. The paper distinguishes our existentialist intervention into OSS from recent ones within that research community and then draws examples of the work on and of myth from the recent Covid-19 pandemic. Speaking to the need for OSS to develop an ethical-political perspective to not only explain but also change the world, the account we develop here also provides a pathway for an alternative politics based in counter-myth. It discloses, therefore, a promising and, in the face of rising authoritarianism and anti-democratic forces, necessary moral ethos regarding presc...
This paper builds upon previous work that has sought to use ontological security to understand pr... more This paper builds upon previous work that has sought to use ontological security to understand problematic and violent state practices, and how they relate to the securitizing of identity. Yet like much (although not all) work which has utilized it in International Relations theory, the application of ontological security theory (OST) to state ‘drives’ has provided only a superficial unpacking of ‘the state’. Further, while OST scholars have examined environmental or background conditions of ‘late modernity’, and how these conditions facilitate anxiety and uncertainty for agents, the content of such factors can be further explicated by placing OST in conversation with one particular systemic account. Alongside ‘the state’ and ‘late modernity’, the paper therefore explores several complementary sites shaping the ontological security seeking process of, within and around states. The paper reads the 2000s re-embrace of torture by the United States by examining ontological security alon...
Two decades after the “war on terror” was first waged, there is little conceptual clarity about w... more Two decades after the “war on terror” was first waged, there is little conceptual clarity about what it means to win a war. Indeed, despite the burgeoning literature on endless war and victory, there is no substantive engagement with how these themes intersect when thinking ethically about the question of war and what passes for peace. This forum seeks to spark a conversation to address this gap. Bringing together theorists and ethicists working on the themes of war and peace, we ask: What might we render visible and redress by thinking critically of the politics of victory in an era of endless war? Further, to the extent that just-war theory has long offered a grammar for the ethics of war, how does it help or hinder this quest?
A key provision in just war theory counsels that it is unjust to engage in conflict without a rea... more A key provision in just war theory counsels that it is unjust to engage in conflict without a reasonable expectation of success. This is often imbued with an exclusive focus on achievability, such that success is connected to an a priori ethical end. This chapter challenges the focus on achievement by untangling the process from the ends. We argue that the most powerful political processes do not have the ‘finality’ so actively sought in ‘winning’ an international conflict. Instead, the process of cultivating finality through victory in war is too often dependent upon an assumed moral outcome driven through the politically, historically, and affectively determinative presentations of the past, presented in the visual and metaphorical scars of victory and defeat. Thus, scars of violence, visceral instances in which conflicts, regardless of outcome, are continually open, perpetuate interpretations and exist independent of attempts to achieve finality through their politicized use.
Libya, the Responsibility to Protect and the Future of Humanitarian Intervention, 2013
The March 2011 NATO intervention in Libya has been widely touted as evidence of a new internation... more The March 2011 NATO intervention in Libya has been widely touted as evidence of a new international norm that has come about as a result of advocacy of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) principle (Ban 2011; Gerber, 2011; Adams, 2011). Likewise, the Libya intervention has been characterized as an ‘unprecedented moment’ that is indicative of a new commitment and consensus by states that they have an obligation — indeed, a responsibility — to protect people who are being grossly abused by their own government (Williams 2011: 249). In contrast to the position that the Libya intervention is somehow groundbreaking or indicates the emergence of a new norm of humanitarian intervention that has been empowered by R2P advocacy, we argue that what enabled the Libya intervention is essentially an international normative environment that was brought about by precedents set during humanitarian interventions in the 1990s, while its proximate causes were the unique political and empirical circumstances that surrounded the Libya crisis. What supplemented this similarity in normative environments and confluence of political factors was a generation of policy analysts, advocates and practitioners who used the failures of the 1990s as a set of formative experiences that provided shortcut comparisons to springboard the Libya intervention.
Following the 2004 establishment of the World War II memorial in Washington DC, itself a product ... more Following the 2004 establishment of the World War II memorial in Washington DC, itself a product of the collective re-commemoration of the so-called 'Greatest Generation' of WWII veterans in the US, nonprofit organizations began the practice of 'Honor flights'. These flights transported US veterans of the Second World War to Washington DC to visit that memorial and other commemorative sites, meet with Congressional members, and return to their local airports to great fanfare and celebration. The practice has evolved to incorporate Korean War and now Vietnam War veterans. As honor flights include much more than the veterans themselves, and as it has become an affectively charged festival for local communities to 'honor' their veterans during periods of unresolved wartimes, I articulate the Honor Flight as a treatment for-but also a symptom of-US ontological insecurity in the 21st Century. Honor flights are celebratory, judgmental, and political micro-practices that reflect and reproduce US militarism in ways that will likely outlast the wartimes of the 21st century United States. Along with other micro-practices of US ontological (in)security, Honor Flights threaten to destabilize the politics of military intervention hereafter, and encourage the extension of or inauguration of new times of war.
This paper contributes to this special issue by examining the existentialist themes re-emerging i... more This paper contributes to this special issue by examining the existentialist themes re-emerging in Ontological Security Studies (OSS) and does so by proposing an under-explored and overlapping terrain regarding the function of myths and ontological security. What Blumenberg calls the ‘absolutism of reality’ becomes something to avoid through the process of telling, retelling, and adapting myths to suit our existential needs. The paper distinguishes our existentialist intervention into OSS from recent ones within that research community and then draws examples of the work on and of myth from the recent Covid-19 pandemic. Speaking to the need for OSS to develop an ethical-political perspective to not only explain but also change the world, the account we develop here also provides a pathway for an alternative politics based in counter-myth. It discloses, therefore, a promising and, in the face of rising authoritarianism and anti-democratic forces, necessary moral ethos regarding presc...
This paper builds upon previous work that has sought to use ontological security to understand pr... more This paper builds upon previous work that has sought to use ontological security to understand problematic and violent state practices, and how they relate to the securitizing of identity. Yet like much (although not all) work which has utilized it in International Relations theory, the application of ontological security theory (OST) to state ‘drives’ has provided only a superficial unpacking of ‘the state’. Further, while OST scholars have examined environmental or background conditions of ‘late modernity’, and how these conditions facilitate anxiety and uncertainty for agents, the content of such factors can be further explicated by placing OST in conversation with one particular systemic account. Alongside ‘the state’ and ‘late modernity’, the paper therefore explores several complementary sites shaping the ontological security seeking process of, within and around states. The paper reads the 2000s re-embrace of torture by the United States by examining ontological security alon...
Two decades after the “war on terror” was first waged, there is little conceptual clarity about w... more Two decades after the “war on terror” was first waged, there is little conceptual clarity about what it means to win a war. Indeed, despite the burgeoning literature on endless war and victory, there is no substantive engagement with how these themes intersect when thinking ethically about the question of war and what passes for peace. This forum seeks to spark a conversation to address this gap. Bringing together theorists and ethicists working on the themes of war and peace, we ask: What might we render visible and redress by thinking critically of the politics of victory in an era of endless war? Further, to the extent that just-war theory has long offered a grammar for the ethics of war, how does it help or hinder this quest?
What role do national icons play in a political community's drive for ontological security? And w... more What role do national icons play in a political community's drive for ontological security? And what implications does this have for global politics? This article situates national icons in service of state ontological security. Icons both unify and divide political communities; therefore they serve, but also disrupt, ontological security-seeking of collectives. Building on research on ontological security and status in International Relations, we examine two case studies of national icons-Vesna Vulović, the celebrated Serbian flight attendant who miraculously survived a major plane crash, and Muhammad Ali, the American boxing legend. Both Vulovicánd Ali initially generated, and then countered, ontological security for their national communities as they transformed from popular culture celebrities into anti-regime political activists. We conclude the article by discussing opportunities for future avenues of research on icons and the politics of identity going forward.
This volume addresses the ethics of war in an era when non-state actors are playing an increasing... more This volume addresses the ethics of war in an era when non-state actors are playing an increasingly prominent role in armed conflict. Central to this concern is the issue of whether, or under what conditions, non-state actors can be said to have the 'authority' to participate in war. The contributors therefore explore and analyze the problems with, and possibilities for, incorporating non-state actors into the traditionally state-centric moral vocabulary about war—namely, the just war tradition.
The concept of the “generation” is a popular staple in the media, from the “Greatest Generation” ... more The concept of the “generation” is a popular staple in the media, from the “Greatest Generation” of US World War II veterans to the contemporary “Millennial” generation. Yet there has been remarkably little recent scholarly treatment of the concept, particularly from a comparative global perspective. This volume examines the role of generations as social units in the politics of Europe, Asia, Africa, and the United States, with topics ranging from the modern origins of the concept of generations in the thinking of Karl Mannheim to the role of generations in foreign policy, gender electoral dynamics, world values, diasporic mobilization, inter-generational conflict, and the origins of military doctrine.
The physical and visually shocking outcomes of violence found on the bodies of humans, as well as... more The physical and visually shocking outcomes of violence found on the bodies of humans, as well as the buildings and landscapes which surround us, specifically the scars they leave behind, remain one of our most compelling forms of accountability. Steele develops the theoretical argument on scars and exteriority utilizing insights from several philosophical and theoretical resources including Hannah Arendt, Erving Goffmann, and Richard Rorty. The work examines scars and their effects through several illustrations, including the accounts of Emmett Till, Iranian protestor Neda Agha-Soltan, the Syrian boy Hamza al-Khateeb, the massacre in WWII and then memorializing throughout the 20th century of the Lidice children in the modern-day Czech Republic, the particular architecturally destructive outcomes of the 2008-9 Gaza War, the loss of the Twin Towers in New York, as well as a variety of violent scars found on the landscapes of Europe and Southeast Asia.
Emphasizing the importance of the space and ‘time’ of scars, the book illustrates how an alternative form of accountability in the scar can be a useful, disruptive, spontaneous, but also creative practice to challenge the discourses of violence which remain with us today.
States pursue social actions to serve self-identity needs, even when these actions compromise the... more States pursue social actions to serve self-identity needs, even when these actions compromise their physical existence. Three forms of social action, sometimes referred to as ‘motives’ of state behaviour (moral, humanitarian, and honour-driven) are analyzed here through an ontological security approach.
Brent J. Steele develops an account of social action which interprets these behaviours as fulfilling a nation-state's drive to secure self-identity through time. The anxiety which consumes all social agents motivates them to secure their sense of being, and thus he posits that transformational possibilities exist in the ‘Self’ of a nation-state. The volume consequently both challenges and complements realist, liberal, constructivist and post-structural accounts to international politics.
Using ontological security to interpret three cases - British neutrality during the American Civil War (1861-1865), Belgium’s decision to fight Germany in 1914, and NATO’s (1999) Kosovo intervention - the book concludes by discussing the importance for self-interrogation in both the study and practice of international relations.
Defacing Power investigates how nation-states create self-images in part through aesthetics and h... more Defacing Power investigates how nation-states create self-images in part through aesthetics and how these images can be manipulated to challenge those states' power. Although states have long employed media, such as radio, television, and film, for their own image-making purposes, counterpower agents have also seized upon new telecommunications technologies. Most recently, the Internet has emerged as contested territory where states and other actors wage a battle of words and images.
Moving beyond theory, Brent Steele illustrates his provocative argument about the vulnerability of power with examples from recent history: the My Lai Massacre and the Tet Offensive, September 11 and the al-Qaeda communiqués, the atrocities at Fallujah and Abu Ghraib, and the U.S. response to the Asian tsunami of December 2004. He demonstrates how a nation-state—even one as powerful as the United States—comes to feel threatened not only by other nation-states or terrorist organizations but also by unexpected events that challenge its self-constructed image of security. At the same time, Steele shows that as each generation uses available media to create and re-create a national identity, technological innovations allow for the shifting, upheaval, and expansion of the cultural structure of a nation.
This paper, a draft of the concluding chapter to a book manuscript, makes a restrained case for r... more This paper, a draft of the concluding chapter to a book manuscript, makes a restrained case for restraint. The strongest case for restraint begins by appreciating the myriad factors that make it so difficult to realize today. I propose a constructivist understanding of restraint via three precepts that acknowledge how restraint involves … (1) both agents and structures; (2) a mixed ontology of mind and body and/or materials and ideas, and, finally; (3) a moral quality. This more comprehensive understanding of restraint discloses the challenges that make it difficult, but not impossible, to materialize. I add two further, contemporary temporal contexts that complicate a politics of restraint. From this, I focus on some of the common resources for restraint – both domestically and internationally – and then pivot to a case for restraint today, not only for the US, but its citizens, and within global politics more broadly. I propose three meta-normative reasons for favoring restraint over vitalism, and a model for a ‘strategic narrative’ of restraint: (1) restraint is less subject to manipulation than vitalism; (2) restraint produces ‘real’ or more grounded results and a more precise delineation of causal claims, and it (3) prevents community fragmentation and perhaps even promotes community re-vitalization. These are brought to bear upon a ‘strategic narrative’ of restraint that can maintain more clarity of judgment and foster a ‘politics of limits’. The model for such a strategic narrative is Reinhold Niebuhr’s ‘Serenity Prayer’ from 1943, that has been re-appropriated and used for a variety of purposes. Restraint, I assert, helps us cope with our late/post-modern predicament. While it can be rendered passive, for these reasons it should also be considered a form of power, as it conditions us to resist other actors and environments getting ‘us’ to ‘do what we otherwise would not do’.
This chapter ‘takes stock’ of the debate between constructivism and realism. How these two ‘appro... more This chapter ‘takes stock’ of the debate between constructivism and realism. How these two ‘approaches’ are linked, positioned and separated has been contested since the turn of the century. One has to admit that this is as much as a debate as previous ones within International Relations (IR): it is mainly constructivists who turn to realism rather than the other way around. Self-acclaimed realists are quite happy to treat all constructivists alike and focus on easy opponents only in order to deny any need for further engagement (see in particular Mearsheimer on ‘critical theory’ 1994/95). One cannot deny that the debate is based on a narrative that unfolds from Morgenthau to Waltz, from Waltz to Wendt, and then closes with some critique on the liberal-moderate constructivists post-Wendt. At the same time, we cannot see any benefit in repeating this storyline as it emphasizes too much the moderate constructivists and leaves the more radical versions of constructivism underrepresented.
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Papers by Brent Steele
Emphasizing the importance of the space and ‘time’ of scars, the book illustrates how an alternative form of accountability in the scar can be a useful, disruptive, spontaneous, but also creative practice to challenge the discourses of violence which remain with us today.
Brent J. Steele develops an account of social action which interprets these behaviours as fulfilling a nation-state's drive to secure self-identity through time. The anxiety which consumes all social agents motivates them to secure their sense of being, and thus he posits that transformational possibilities exist in the ‘Self’ of a nation-state. The volume consequently both challenges and complements realist, liberal, constructivist and post-structural accounts to international politics.
Using ontological security to interpret three cases - British neutrality during the American Civil War (1861-1865), Belgium’s decision to fight Germany in 1914, and NATO’s (1999) Kosovo intervention - the book concludes by discussing the importance for self-interrogation in both the study and practice of international relations.
Moving beyond theory, Brent Steele illustrates his provocative argument about the vulnerability of power with examples from recent history: the My Lai Massacre and the Tet Offensive, September 11 and the al-Qaeda communiqués, the atrocities at Fallujah and Abu Ghraib, and the U.S. response to the Asian tsunami of December 2004. He demonstrates how a nation-state—even one as powerful as the United States—comes to feel threatened not only by other nation-states or terrorist organizations but also by unexpected events that challenge its self-constructed image of security. At the same time, Steele shows that as each generation uses available media to create and re-create a national identity, technological innovations allow for the shifting, upheaval, and expansion of the cultural structure of a nation.
From this, I focus on some of the common resources for restraint – both domestically and internationally – and then pivot to a case for restraint today, not only for the US, but its citizens, and within global politics more broadly. I propose three meta-normative reasons for favoring restraint over vitalism, and a model for a ‘strategic narrative’ of restraint: (1) restraint is less subject to manipulation than vitalism; (2) restraint produces ‘real’ or more grounded results and a more precise delineation of causal claims, and it (3) prevents community fragmentation and perhaps even promotes community re-vitalization. These are brought to bear upon a ‘strategic narrative’ of restraint that can maintain more clarity of judgment and foster a ‘politics of limits’. The model for such a strategic narrative is Reinhold Niebuhr’s ‘Serenity Prayer’ from 1943, that has been re-appropriated and used for a variety of purposes. Restraint, I assert, helps us cope with our late/post-modern predicament. While it can be rendered passive, for these reasons it should also be considered a form of power, as it conditions us to resist other actors and environments getting ‘us’ to ‘do what we otherwise would not do’.