Introduction

This part introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters. The part offers perspectives on war written after World War II. It discusses the interdisciplinary questions arising from an inquiry into how the social context relates to how the mind can function in times of war. The part reviews a number of classical and later psychoanalytic understandings of the precipitants of war in the light of the how we deal with basic internal mental states. It focuses on the work of Elliot Jacques and Melanie Klein to link unconscious states of mind in the individual to collective attitudes and defences. The part explains a denunciation of the policy of deterrence in a nuclear world. It argues that grounded in psychoanalytic theory and clinical experience and is employed in a sophisticated manner to underline contradictions and paradoxes in military policy.