ABSTRACT
The universalist moral argument tends toward radicalism at the level of consciousness. The socioeconomic argument tends toward radicalism in terms of the larger structures of political order. The foregoing is a very simple categorization of the main forms of dissent on contemporary militarism. There are many important variations within each category particularly with respect to the conception of socioeconomic structures that underlie contemporary militarist tendencies. The strategic-geopolitical critique begins with the destabilization of the contemporary structures of nuclear deterrence. Once the critique of contemporary militarism is trapped in hegemonic discourse it becomes vulnerable to a wide range of difficulties. Critiques of militarism can then be dismissed not only in terms of being Utopian or subversive in general, but Utopian and subversive with respect to some specific and historically constituted enemy. The critique of contemporary militarism, then, works in a milieu that is simultaneously theoretical and political.
