Military Orientalism: Contrasting Western and Eastern Ways of War

Imperial Journal of Interdisciplinary Research (IJIR) Vol-3, Issue-6, 2017 ISSN: 2454-1362, http://www.onlinejournal.in Military Orientalism: Contrasting Western and Eastern Ways of War Hamid Kbiri Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences / University Mohammed V, Rabat Abstract: Military orientalism is a novel concept perceived superiority even in the scrum of war, which refers to the centrality of orientalist irrespective of History’s ebbs and flows. representations in the construction of oriental enemies and their warfare traditions, in 2. Western vs. Eastern Ways of War contradistinction with glorified self-perceptions and Western “way of war.” The concept is particularly In this respect, the strong emphasis put by several manifest in the insistence among Western military prominent Western historians on the existence of a historians and strategists on the contrast between perpetually superior Western Way of War is one of Western and Eastern ways of wars based on binaries the salient manifestations of Military orientalism. that give, in a typically orientalist way, the higher This emphasis has resulted in a fictitious contrast ground to the West on every aspects of warfare, between a supposedly decisive Western way of war irrespective of History’s ebbs and flows . and its failing, apolitical and archaic Eastern counterpart. This highly ethnocentric outlook is symptomatic of self-aggrandizing orientalism, as it 1. Introduction favors the contradistinctive celebration of the West’s The present article outlines a critique of the military tradition as unique and implacable. From culturalism which became prevalent among Western this perspective, war in its Western and Eastern military historians concerning the East at war declensions has been made into an historical especially in the aftermath of the 9/11 events. These construct and a site of knowledge/power production attacks gave a powerful thrust to cultural as is further explicated hereafter. determinism in war studies particularly in a context saturated by the debate spurred in the 90s by Following the 9/11 events which took the United- Huntington’s presumably inevitable clash of States by surprise as the first ever attack on the civilizations. This cultural determinism is manifest in “main land”, there was a widespread tendency the insistence among Western military historians and among academia and strategists to divert attention strategists on the distinction between Western and from US failure to avert such devastating attacks by Eastern ways of wars based on binaries that give, in a blaming the modus operandi of the attackers on a typically orientalist way, the higher ground to the supposedly quintessential oriental way of war based West on every aspects of warfare. It is about the on deceit and cunning; and conversely sublimating systematic essentializing of the West and East on the the ensuing response as proceeding from a superb, basis of their allegedly distinctive military and frontal and unambiguous ‘Western way of war’ warring traditions. which allegedly dates back to the Greeks [5,6]. It is said to surpass all other civilizations’ warrior It is in this context that the concept of Military traditions with America being its ultimate incarnation Orientalism emerged as lately as 2006 thanks to and the guardian of its ‘formidable’ legacy, given its Taraq Barkawi [1,2] and other scholars such as unparalleled technological and military supremacy. Patrick Porter [3] who contributed later to this This orientalist move was also meant, inter alia, to conceptualizing effort within the fledgling discipline have therapeutic effects on the hurt US ethos and to of Critical War Studies. Military Orientalism can be mobilize the public opinion for a long and global roughly defined as the insights of Orientalism [4] “war on terror” as evidenced by the initial name applied to the military realm. Indeed, orientalism as a given to the War on Afghanistan “Operation Infinite cultural apparatus and a style of thought is pervasive Justice.” to all domains of human endeavors involving oriental others, including war. In this sense, the concept of This highlights that, in war more than in any other Military Orientalism serves to highlight the tendency realm of human interaction, orientalist identities, as of Western identity to make the East a foil to its self- Patricia Owens contends, are “relational and performative.” They do not exist factually but are Imperial Journal of Interdisciplinary Research (IJIR) Page 1206 Imperial Journal of Interdisciplinary Research (IJIR) Vol-3, Issue-6, 2017 ISSN: 2454-1362, http://www.onlinejournal.in rather “produced and reproduced through discourse” One of the most prominent adepts of this [7]. In normal times, i.e. peace, attached to these eminently ideological current is the renowned British identities, is what Roxanne Doty identifies as “a historian John Keegan. Keegan, who gained in chain of equivalences that was created between the notoriety in the 2000s for obvious reasons, terms civilized, rationality, reason, and sovereign, on emphasized the key idea that war is intrinsically the one hand, and uncivilized, instinctual, and cultural and claimed the existence of a separate dependent on the other hand” [8]. Such qualities, or Oriental warrior tradition, characterized mainly by rather signifiers, have been clustering together to “evasion, delay and indirectness” [12]. He also form a particular identity, a "totality" of attributes contended that this long standing tradition which separate and distinct from other identities [8]. Stuart dates back to ancient China and Persia had Hall for his part sees these identities as involving a reappeared in a variety of forms throughout history. violent hierarchy which he ascribes to the rampant One instance is the tactics of evasion and retreat used ethnocentrism that flows from the gross inequalities by the Vietcong against the United States in the of power between West and East [9]. On the eve of Vietnam war and more recently in the 9/11 attacks war, other context specific attributes add up to those [6]. While he aligns himself with Samuel already identified as congealing around adversary Huntington, by arguing for hermetic and monolithic identities. Accordingly, the figure of the oriental civilizations with their distinctive warring traditions, warrior is constructed as deceitful, irrational, he still takes issue with him for overlooking the emotional, vengeful and capable of unruly violence. “fundamental” dissimilarities in ways of war: Whereas, Western soldiers are, contrastingly, represented as rational individuals who operate If I thought Huntington's view had a defect, it within armies that are “made for industrial battles, was that he did not discuss what I think the decisive plots of organized force, and orchestrated crucial ingredient of any Western-Islamic manoeuvres” [10]. These armies are furthermore conflict, their quite distinctively different ways celebrated as “rational, orderly, calculated of making war. Westerners fight face to face, in bureaucracies with a sophisticated division of labor, stand-up battle, and go on until one side or the high-tech weapons systems and clear lines of other gives in. They choose the crudest weapons authority from civilian politicians” [10]. available, and use them with appalling violence, but observe what, to non-Westerners may well This inclination to differentiate between Western seem curious rules of honor. Orientals, by and Eastern ways of war seems to draw on past contrast, shrink from pitched battle, which they legacies. Already in the nineteenth century, Colonel often deride as a sort of game, preferring Charles E. Callwell whose 1896 book Small Wars: ambush, surprise, treachery and deceit as the Their Principles and Practice had an enduring best way to overcome an enemy. [6] influence on counterinsurgency doctrine and asymmetric warfare, had distinguished between Keegan goes on to trace this “devious” way of savage and civilized modes of warfare. According to war as far as the Middle-East is concerned to what he Callwell, savage wars were waged by foreign calls the “Islamic mind” --an expression that echoes cultures along different lines. He maintains that Raphael Patai’s The Arab Mind; the very book that savages were easily impressed by “a bold and had an overriding orientalist influence on the conduct resolute procedure”, i.e., in modern day language by of the counterinsurgency and the whole Iraq war in overwhelming force, and were readily suppressed by general. According to Keegan, the Islamic mind was shows of firmness [3]. Callwell’s argument seems to inspired by nomadic horse-riding marauders, who have enshrined the prevalent theorem that a society’s predate the prophet of Islam. It has remained mode of war is linked its degree of civilization. No unchanged from the time it allowed the raiding wonder that on the occasion of the global war on Muslim Arabs to become conquerors of terrifying terror whose subjects are situated in oriental power, “able to overthrow the ancient empires both territories, this idea of a culture-bound “Eastern” of Byzantium and Persia and to take possession of way of war, has resurfaced with force. Underpinned huge areas of Asia, Africa and Europe” [6]. as it is by a set of concepts and behavior that Accordingly, Arabs resorted again to their traditional distinguishes East from West, it constitutes, for its methods on September 11, 2001, “appearing most radical proponents, an unbroken strategic and suddenly out of empty

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