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Strategy Is Dead. Long Live Strategy! Hannah Arendt on Imperial and Total War
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This paper offers a contribution to the wider project of rereading classical strategy against classical strategy by turning from the phenomenologist of war, Clausewitz, to the phenomenologist of politics, Hannah Arendt. In particular, Arendt’s account of how late nineteenth century imperialism set off socio-military processes in the direction of total war in Europe enables us to rethink some of the foundational assumptions of classical strategy in a way Clausewitz cannot. Outside the civilized confines of Europe, Clausewitz considered the world to be in a constant state of war; he regarded primitive peoples as having an especially war-like spirit. Civilized war depended on the distinction between war and peace; it ended with the clear victory of one side over the other after a large-scale battle. As a result, civilized and savage wars were kept in separate boxes in nineteenth century military thought. Hannah Arendt, in contrast, is an important forerunner of emerging efforts to read the post-colonial into strategic and security studies. Her ground-breaking work on the links between colonial war and total war in Europe in Origins of Totalitarianism has been central to all subsequent historical accounts. To date, the association, and the constitutive relationship between war in the North and South, has been rejected by classical strategy and military history. Following Clausewitz, this literature prefers to keep ‘small wars’ and conventional European war in separate boxes. Accordingly, Arendt provides an important corrective to this and a number of other conceptual and historical flaws of both strategic and international studies. Reading Arendt this way also contributes to filling a gap in the vast secondary literature on her work. There is no systematic account of Arendt’s writing on the war question and there are very few treatments of her thinking on imperialism. The few that have been attentive to the latter dimension of Arendt’s work misread her intentions and the subtlety of her thought.
Most Common Document Word Stems: war (146), polit (84), arendt (78), imperi (51), strategi (46), ot (37), state (36), violenc (36), coloni (33), militari (33), univers (33), press (30), forc (29), new (28), world (27), europ (26), mean (26), nation (25), pp (25), power (24), polici (24),

Author's Keywords: Hannah Arendt, Imperial War, Total War	Convention Convention is an application service for managing large or small academic conferences, annual meetings, and other types of events! Submission - Custom fields, multiple submission types, tracks, audio visual, multiple upload formats, automatic conversion to pdf. Review - Peer Review, Bulk reviewer assignment, bulk emails, ranking, z-score statistics, and multiple worksheets! Reports - Many standard and custom reports generated while you wait. Print programs with participant indexes, event grids, and more! Scheduling - Flexible and convenient grid scheduling within rooms and buildings. Conflict checking and advanced filtering. Communication - Bulk email tools to help your administrators send reminders and responses. Use form letters, a message center, and much more! Management - Search tools, duplicate people management, editing tools, submission transfers, many tools to manage a variety of conference management headaches! Click here for more information.
Association: Name: International Studies Association URL: http://www.isanet.org
Citation: URL: http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p100303_index.html Direct Link: HTML Code:

Owens, Patricia. "Strategy Is Dead. Long Live Strategy! Hannah Arendt on Imperial and Total War" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Studies Association, Town & Country Resort and Convention Center, San Diego, California, USA, Mar 22, 2006 Online <PDF>. 2008-06-27 <http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p100303_index.html>

Owens, P. (2006, Mar) "Strategy Is Dead. Long Live Strategy! Hannah Arendt on Imperial and Total War" Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Studies Association, Town & Country Resort and Convention Center, San Diego, California, USA Online <PDF> Retrieved 2008-06-27 from http://www.allacademic.com/meta/p100303_index.html

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript Abstract: This paper offers a contribution to the wider project of rereading classical strategy against classical strategy by turning from the phenomenologist of war, Clausewitz, to the phenomenologist of politics, Hannah Arendt. In particular, Arendt’s account of how late nineteenth century imperialism set off socio-military processes in the direction of total war in Europe enables us to rethink some of the foundational assumptions of classical strategy in a way Clausewitz cannot. Outside the civilized confines of Europe, Clausewitz considered the world to be in a constant state of war; he regarded primitive peoples as having an especially war-like spirit. Civilized war depended on the distinction between war and peace; it ended with the clear victory of one side over the other after a large-scale battle. As a result, civilized and savage wars were kept in separate boxes in nineteenth century military thought. Hannah Arendt, in contrast, is an important forerunner of emerging efforts to read the post-colonial into strategic and security studies. Her ground-breaking work on the links between colonial war and total war in Europe in Origins of Totalitarianism has been central to all subsequent historical accounts. To date, the association, and the constitutive relationship between war in the North and South, has been rejected by classical strategy and military history. Following Clausewitz, this literature prefers to keep ‘small wars’ and conventional European war in separate boxes. Accordingly, Arendt provides an important corrective to this and a number of other conceptual and historical flaws of both strategic and international studies. Reading Arendt this way also contributes to filling a gap in the vast secondary literature on her work. There is no systematic account of Arendt’s writing on the war question and there are very few treatments of her thinking on imperialism. The few that have been attentive to the latter dimension of Arendt’s work misread her intentions and the subtlety of her thought.

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