Virtuous War: Mapping The Military- Industrial-media-entertainment Network

by James Der Derian

In the Mojave Desert, off the shores of San Francisco Bay, in the hills of southern Germany, next door to Disneyworld and in the heart of Hollywood, the United States armed forces are preparing for the next war. They are fought by the military in the same manner as they are viewed by citizens, on real-time networks and by live-feed videos, on the PC and the TV, actually and virtually. Enabled by smart technologies yet constrained by political and humanitarian imperatives, a new form of high-tech, low-risk warfare is emerging, Virtuous War. In Virtuous War, James Der Derian takes the reader on a roadtrip through the future of war, where cyborg combat technologies, video games, TV news stories, Army training exercises, and Hollywood movies all blur and converge in a new military-industrial-media-entertainment network. He shows us a world in which CNN and Disney are as much a part of the battlefield as Lockheed Martin and the Pentagon, where Marine fire-teams train with the video game “Doom”, and entertainment executives design Army wargames. All the while Der Derian offers tremendous insight on the questions that arise as the tail of technology wags the dog of war: Will killing become easier? Will peace become harder? Will war lose its place as the ultimate reality-check of international politics? The result is the first book to offer a “virtual theory” for the military strategies, philosophical questions, ethical issues, and political controversies surrounding the future of war and peace.

Genres: Technology, Military Fiction, War, Politics

249 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2001

Reviews

[James · Rating 1 out of 5]

LIFE IS TOO SHORT FOR DRECK LIKE THIS! I started this book with high expectations, as this is an area in which I'm very interested. Alas, it turned out to be a waste of paper, ink, and time. Full of the kind of pseudo-intellectual gibberish usually reserved for art criticism, devoid of clear or original ideas, pretentious, incoherent. Heavily filled out with irrelevant word plays, fatuous arguments based on treating different meanings of a given word as if they were the same (in other words, either muddy thinking or deliberate sophistry), and a lot of the "I am so cool!" attempts at irony that most of us outgrew at about age 20.

On top of the other problems, this presents itself as a canny look ahead into the future of warfare, but it was written in mid 2001 and totally bought into the Rumsfeldian fascination with gee-whiz tech, utterly failing to anticipate things like fundamentalists with box cutters and insurgents with beat-up old AK-47s, RPGs, and tank-wrecking jury-rigged IEDs who can't be tracked or fought by satellites and computers and lasers. I searched the index in vain, in case I'd missed it, for any mention of guerrilla warfare, irregular warfare, fundamentalism, terrorism, insurgency, etc. I did find references to Nazi filmmakers, Hollywood stars, and various American politicians.

Some books are great, some are so-so, some are disappointing - this is a case of "four hours of my life gone, gone!"

[Melanie Randle · Rating 4 out of 5]

In simulated preparations and virtual executions of war, there is a high risk that one learns how to kill but not to take responsibility for it, one experiences 'death' but not the tragic consequences of it. In virtuous war we now face not just the confusion but the pixillation of war and game on the same screen. (Der Derian, 2000: 773)

[Anica · Rating 5 out of 5]

This rules

[goodreads · Rating 4 out of 5]

A really useful an interesting book when it comes to mapping to increasingly large role of the video games industry in the military. Der Derian paints an alarming picture of wars of simulation conducted through retooled video games engines in order to create a more 'humane' war machine.

A keen example is the first gulf war in which two pieces of the same game scenario end up as the two sides in the field of combat. The US follows its computer simulation of what happens if Iraq invades Kuwait, itself a scenario run by the Iraqi's whom have the same technology.

Worryingly the result of virtual war is anything other than virtual; machines kill real people in an ever more abstract type of killing which has the unfortunate effect of reducing the consequences in the eyes of those conducting the war through virtual means.

[Muhammad Ahmad · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this endlessly digressive book hard to read, only occasionally interesting, and only vaguely informative. Perhaps better editing would have helped. The concept is interesting but others have dealt with it better in fewer words.

[Erica · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first book I ever read that applies postmodern theory to a specific context and both makes sense and seemed to have a real-world application, rather than just theoretical ramblings.