pure war

is a military-scientific messianism' which underpins the global order of security based on nuclear weapons.

In effect Virilio moves from a thinking of military technologies which shape social and political space to a thinking of a military-technological world view which shapes our entire apprehension of reality. Pure war becomes, for Virilio, a modern cult, a 'military-scientific messianism' which underpins the global order of security based on nuclear weapons. p.80

is neither peace nor war; rather it is the military instance in its perennial ordinariness.

In Popular defence and Ecological Struggles Virilio expresses this as follows: 'PURE WAR is neither peace nor war, nor is, as we may have believed, “absolute" or “total" war, rather it is the military instance in its perennial ordinariness' (Virilio 1990: 35).

is characterized by (1) the stripping from war of the contingency of the battlefield (2) the raising of technological power to the level of a mystical or metaphysical figure.

It is these two aspects, that is, the stripping from war of the contingency of the battlefield, and the raising of technological power to the level of a mystical or metaphysical figure, which come to characterize Virilio's use of the term 'pure war'.

is not about conflict, but concerns the development of science as techno-science.

Pure war, for Virilio, isn't 'tied down to confrontation between East and West, but to the development of science as techno-science' (Virilio and Lotringer 1997: 167). In the final analysis, it appears to describe an almost religious attitude rather than a specific mode of conflict: 'Pure War is the absolute idol . . . Pure War is entirely comparable to that of the idol in ancient societies' (Virilio and Lotringer 1997: 164). It is an 'ultimate metaphysical figure' (Virilio 1990: 102).

is indicative not just of a military strategy based on generalized insecurity; it comes to stand as a figure for a global, technological, economic and even metaphysical organization the state and of collective experience.

This state of total peace is closely connected to what, in subsequent works, Virilio comes to call 'pure war'. Both these terms are used in relation to the logic of nuclear deterrence, but it is arguable that 'pure war' becomes a far more all-embracing theoretical term in so far as it more directly implies, not just a military strategy based on generalized insecurity, but comes to stand as a figure for a global, technological, economic and even metaphysical organization the state and of collective experience. Pure war is similar to total peace in so far as both imply the conflation of the states of war and peace described above. p.79

is a thinking which explicitly foregrounds the techno-scientific ideology which underpins nuclear deterrence as both a mode of organizing the whole of human society and a metaphysical figure or belief system which shapes a collective view of reality.

This, in turn, develops into a thinking of pure war, a thinking which more explicitly foregrounds the techno-scientific ideology which underpins nuclear deterrence as both a mode of organizing the whole of human society and a metaphysical figure or belief system which shapes a collective view of reality. p.80

is not to be understood in terms of a specific conflict and far more to be understood in terms of techno-scientific discovery.

Unlike total peace, pure war is to be seen less in relation to a specific conflict (e.g. the Second World War) and far more in terms of techno-scientific discovery.

is transcendent of the question of conflict and functions as an organizing or structuring the whole of human reality.

War in its 'pure' form appears almost to transcend the question of conflict per se and to become a mode of organizing or structuring the whole of human reality. It is located in the scientific or techno-scientific view of the world, that is, 'war operating in the sciences . . . everything that is perverting the field of knowledge' (Virilio and Lotringer 1997: 27). p.79

pure war, n.All

pure war