Connected Capitalism?
“The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist—McDonald’s cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas, the builder of the F-15. And the hidden fist that…
Tag: imperialism
Empire’s “Mimic Men”
Imperialism by Invitation or Imitation? US efforts in remaking the international system according to an image reflecting the US are not usually in complete vain since the track…
Force Multipliers and Stealth Imperialism
The force multiplier mechanism is not just something envisioned in military writing, but is instead a cornerstone of US intervention, both overt and covert. The CIA uses the…
Force Multipliers and Cuba
Much of what appears as “novel” thinking in US imperial strategies, masks deeper historical foundations. Numerous authors have already explained how Latin America and the Caribbean, from the…
The “Science” of Global Domination
While it is an odd mix of physics, biology, and geometry that has captured the communications strategy of military planners, the messages themselves are very telling about how…
Scientific Imperialism
“A fundamental law of Netwonian physics applies also to military maneuver: one can achieve overwhelming force by substituting velocity for mass”. (Maj. Gen. Robert H. Scales, 2003) “Are…
Instrumental Partners: An Imperial Science of Agency
For an empire whose imperialism is still denied by many, a striking number of terms and concepts have been generated by US leaders that nonetheless are premised on…
Eight Questions and Seven Theses about Force Multipliers
“Force multipliers: Machines which allow a small effort to move a larger load are called force multipliers. Some examples of force multipliers include: a crowbar, wheelbarrow, nutcracker, and…
(New Book) Force Multipliers: The Instrumentalities of Imperialism
From ALERT PRESS: Click here to order a printed copy, or, Click here for the free e-book (pdf) Friends and allies, partners and protégés, extensions and proxies—the vocabulary…
Caribbean military encounters
How the relationship between the Caribbean and foreign military forces in the 20th century had many different incarnations and forms, and left lasting legacies… The Caribbean Studies Ass…
The Corruption Complex
The cultural logics of corruption and how they can be found in T&T Writing about corruption from the petty to the massive in Africa, anthropologist Jean-Pierre Sardan proposed…
Democracy in Cuba and at Home
Review essay, Part 1 (see Part 2) Cuba and its Neighbours: Democracy in Motion. By Arnold August. Halifax: Fernwood Publishing; London: Zed Books. 2013. ISBN 978-1-55266-404-9. 267 pages…
25 Years without the Berlin Wall
Needless to say, the end of foreign imposed partition is an occasion of joy for any country. Here in Ireland, we look forward to the day when the…
Bruno Latour: Imperialist?
I recently saw a blogpost that took Bruno Latour and his disciples/fellow travellers to task for being colonialist ('An Indigenous Feminist’s take on the Ontological Turn: ‘ontology’…
About Those Good Intentions
The following, the final in our series of extracts, comes from my chapter, “Imperial Abduction Lore and Humanitarian Seduction,” which serves as the introduction to Good Intentions: Norms…
Realism or Iconography? The Pentagon’s Implicit Theory of Visual Representation
The following is an extract from my chapter, “A Flickr of Militarization: Photographic Regulation, Symbolic Consecration, and the Strategic Communication of ‘Good Intentions’,” published in Good Int…
The US Military as Great Chief, Father, Doctor, and Babysitter
The following is an extract from my chapter, “A Flickr of Militarization: Photographic Regulation, Symbolic Consecration, and the Strategic Communication of ‘Good Intentions’,” published in Good Int…
The Visual Imperium
The following is an extract from my chapter, “A Flickr of Militarization: Photographic Regulation, Symbolic Consecration, and the Strategic Communication of ‘Good Intentions’,” published in Good Int…
Pentagon Photography and Visual Anthropology
Could it be any more obvious how the Pentagon has learned to mimic certain styles of anthropological photography as shown in the instance above? Resembling any of a…