Microliberations

Robot

Author and journalist Mike Sauve writes that "filmic language [is the] last lone ontological system available to all after the death of God." In other words, the shared memes, images, and quotations from the world of cinema are the last common experiences that the general public can all

Midwest Eurasianism

In his book The War for Eternity (2020), Benjamin Teitelbaum interviewed President Trump's former Chief Strategist Steve Bannon and Russian philosopher Aleksandr Dugin to explore the influence of Traditionalist philosophies on American politics. Bannon's claim that the true common people of America are those protected from

Philosophy

Killing Time

"As something possible, death is supposed to show as little as possible of its possibility", writes Heidegger in Being and Time (p.251). Yet what happens if the moment of our death is fully revealed to us, such as through capital punishment?

A Fate Worse Than Death

Seen strictly from a US strategic point of view, the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq after 9/11 were successful - they prevented another major terrorist attack on the US homeland - yet symbolically (bookended between images of the collapse of the Twin Towers and the fall of Kabul airport

Microliberations newsletter #6 Bumper New Year edition 2023: Launch

A round-up of BMD related developments from late October to the end of December 2022. As well as more personal updates.

Microliberations newsletter #5 October 2022: Shield

A significant missile defence development this month has been the inauguration of the European Sky Shield Initiative. Spurred on by the conflict in Ukraine, Germany has spearheaded an initiative to create a European air and missile defence system through the common acquisition of air defence equipment and missiles by European

Microliberations newsletter #4 September 2022: Disintermediate

This month's digest of the impact of military technology on strategy has an emphasis on ballistic missile defence interceptors. There's also the full public release of the first Hypervelocity podcast, the latest round of Read and Relax as well as some interesting looking books. Hope you

The Everyone War

Smartphones have disintermediated the frontline between combatants and civilians.

Microliberations newsletter #3 July/August 2022: Hypervelocity

This is my third newsletter rounding up some of the impacts of military technology on strategy that've caught my eye over the last two months (I wasn't able to complete the July newsletter in time as I've been on holiday, so I thought I&

Between Good and Evil

Liberalism's Faustian Wager

Wuthered

Wuthering Heights is a tale of extreme domestic violence, child physical abuse and mental debasement written in a beautiful prose style.

Microliberations newsletter #2 June 2022: Bunker

The second of my monthly newsletters in which I share some developments on the impact of military technology on strategy, with a particular focus on ballistic missile defence in a UK context, as well as more personal reflections on my interests in philosophy and books. In this month's

Drone Ethics Part 12: St George's Lance

One of the key questions thrown up by the rise of drone warfare is how to persuade combatants to adhere to some kind of common norm on the limits of violence in conflict when one side has such an overwhelming advantage. In Drone Theory (2015) Gregoire Chamayou attempts to address

Microliberations Newsletter #1 May 2022: Beginnings

Trying something new, a monthly newsletter sharing a few articles related to the impact of military technology on strategy, with a particular focus on ballistic missile defence in a UK context. I'll also feature more esoteric content coming from my interest in philosophy and books. In this month&

Military Tech and Strategy

Drone Ethics Part 11: Acephalic World Spirit

As the V2 rockets fell on London in 1944 Theodor Adorno wrote, "I have seen the world-spirit," not on horse-back, but on wings and without a head". What this acephalic weltgeist harboured, Gregoire Chamayou argues in Drone Theory, was the total effacement of any identifiable subject that

Eremitic Warfare

Plato's Allegory of the Cave and the Drone Pilot

Philosophy

Vile Bodies

'This study of the historical technologies of debasement calls for the creation of a political philosophy of scientific practice.'

Philosophy

Language and Death

In the beginning was the Word (John 1:1).

Dopamine All the Way Down

The physical and the mental are different but complementary forms of beauty.

Politics

Eating the Masses

Political Triangulation and the Populist Reaction

Military Tech and Strategy

Drone-Ethics

This free pamphlet is my digest of Gregoire Chamayou's excellent 2015 book, Drone Theory.

Military Tech and Strategy

Drone-Ethics part 10

Skin in the Game: Drones & War without Warfare

Military Tech and Strategy

Drone-Ethics Part 9

Mechanised Atrocity and the Death of the Subject

Military Tech and Strategy

Drone-Ethics Part 8

Drones and the Divine Right of Kings: Hobbes vs. Rousseau

Military Tech and Strategy

Drone-Ethics part 7

‘Depriving the Enemy of an Enemy’: Drones and the Guevarist Guerrilla