ABSTRACT
The exclusion of certain philosophical categories in Michel Foucault analytic of power, though methodologically consistent, leads to an impasse which Foucault recognised but could not resolve. Therefore, for Foucault, the concrete, empirical and immanent articulation of power and knowledge in modernity demands an analysis of power conducted along these same concrete and immanent terms, an approach "which is more empirical, more directly related to our present situation, and which implies more relations between theory and practice". Foucault's proposal, put plainly, is this: "can war act as the operator of analysis of the relations of power?"(War 15) Concern with war and warfare is not a dominant feature of Foucault's work. This is surprising, considering the fact that war obviously has some relation to power, to the state, and to questions of authority and sovereignty, all issues that are of interest to Foucault.
