ABSTRACT

This essay serves as an attempt to understand war: not as "politics by another means" or externalized aggression, but as a process by which peaceful intentions are transformed into active battle. Why do leaders (and those highly mediated and reified identities we call "countries"), who constantly endorse peace, go to war? How is the ultimate goal of peace transformed into acts of violence? While these questions have long remained at the center of international relations, they are usually asked as if they were psychological or structural problems. While not necessarily criticizing these approaches, this essay looks instead at the formal linguistic construction and justification of warfare.1 How, in other words, are wars and acts of war justified and excused through ordinary language?2