ABSTRACT
In the historical moment of this writing, the US military is embroiled in the longest war in US history, in Afghanistan. In December 2011, the United States officially announced an end to the war in Iraq, an occupation that began in 2003. Also in 2011, the United States conducted air strikes in Libya; in the spring of 2012, there is again talk of war against Iran. Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri (2004) have theorized this present state as “the normal state of affairs . . . we have now entered a perpetual state of war” (p. 21). Whereas this pronouncement may at first seem farfetched, we have reached a moment when the state has achieved a “monopoly on legitimate violence” (p. 25). This monopoly has resulted in the constant growth of the defense industry, seriously blurring the lines between police and military action. Department of Homeland Security grants and inducements, coupled with federal funding for local police action in the “War on Drugs,” have not only brought forth a wholly new form of military involvement abroad, but have also generated pernicious forms of militarization in the US. As military action abroad has become more akin to police action, the police force within the United States has concomitantly become more militarized, with increasingly sophisticated weapons and technology structuring policy activity in communities across the US. Hardt and Negri continue, “Whereas ‘defense’ involves a protective barrier against external threats, ‘security’ justifies a constant martial activity equally in the homeland and abroad” (p. 21).
