Militarism and Capitalism in the 20th Century

In this chapter, the author aims to show that the discourse on militarism, militarization, and arms build-ups in the 20th century constitutes a single 'archive.' This is not the result of a continuity of thought, nor is it due to the continuity of a particular social formation. This 'archive,' which itself consists of many and contradictory statements, is shaped by a profound loss, and by the century-long effort to recover this loss. This is the loss of 19th-century political and social project(s) for the formation of a civil society. It is the loss of the notion of civil societies set against a clearly delinated and identifiable military sphere and the rampant violence of the absolutist international order. It also consists in a pervasive anxiety about the replacement of these projects of civil society by militarized social and institutional structures.