The Anti-Fascist Air War “Any distinction between belligerents and non-belligerents is no longer admissible today in fact or theory. Not in theory, because when nations are at war, everyone takes part in it: the soldier carrying his gun, the woman loading shells in a factory, the farmer growing wheat, the scientist experimenting in his laboratory. Not in fact, because nowadays the offensive may reach anyone; and now it begins to…
The Gamification of Proletarian Struggle In our historical perspective, play — the constant experimentation with ludic innovations — only comes into being alongside ethics and questions of life’s meaning. The only success which we can appreciate in play is the immediate success of its ambience, and the constant increase of its powers. In its present co-existence with the residues of the phase of decline, play cannot completely free itself from…
Rural Guerrilla Warfare in Medieval England “”There must be an end to serfdom!” Robin’s voice rang clear above the crackling fire. “An end of tolls and tithes and dues and forced services! The land for the peasants and the town for the workmen! No more castles, no more hired cut-throats in livery and no more war service, no barons, no king!” “No baron! No king!” “It won’t be easy, my…
Power Play in the Tropics “The active phase of a coup is like a military operation – only more so. If the general principle of tactics is the application of force at the right place, the coup achieves this with surgical precision by striking at the organisational heart of the whole state; if speed is often important in military operations, in the coup it is an essential requirement. But the…
Fighting in the Wars of the Outer Worlds “Lucas isn’t exactly doing anything unprecedented — the Empire is basically a bunch of space Nazis, and Lucas parallels the Empire’s rise in the prequels with the Nazi Party’s rise in Germany. But for as stilted and affectless as the films can be, they’re tapped into something raw and real about how often seemingly stable societies collapse into fascism, into revolution, into…
The rise and fall of aṣabiyyah “Wars and different kinds of fighting have always occurred in the world since Allah created it. The origin of war is the desire of certain human beings to take revenge on others. Each side is supported by the people sharing its group feeling. When they have sufficiently excited each other for the purpose and the two sides confront each other, one seeking revenge and…
