Description
The concept of ‘capitalist realism’ offers a particular diagnosis of the cultural condition of late capitalism: in which it is easier to imagine the end of the world, than the end of capitalism. Contemporary understandings of war are defined by a similar failure to envisage or countenance alternatives to war. Through the concept of ‘martial realism’, this paper seeks to describe a reinforcing set of historical and cultural investments through which war is insulated from critique.
While many International Relations scholars write about war, existing critiques tend to be confined to a logic of recrimination in which certain practices are deemed exceptional or excessive. Such critiques tend to problematise the target, the weapon, the practice. What tends to remain unaccounted for within such critiques is the problem of war itself. Outside of academia, it is seemingly unremarkable for a President to accept a Nobel Peace Prize whilst offering a robust defence of the Just War tradition. More recently, outbreaks of war are met with a consensus that ‘now is not the time for pacifism’; whilst those advocating for peace are increasingly seen as either unserious or politically suspect
