Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari
A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia
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TREATISE ON NOMADOLOGY--THE WAR MACHINE
We now come to three successive problems. First, is the battle the "object" of war? But also, is war the "object" of the war machine? And finally, to what extent is the war machine the "object" of the State apparatus? The ambiguity of the first two problems is certainly due to the term "object," but implies their dependency on the third. We must nevertheless approach these problems gradually, even if we are reduced to multiplying examples. The first question, that of the battle, requires an immediate distinction to be made between two cases: when a battle is sought, and when it is essentially avoided by the war machine. These two cases in no way coincide with the offensive and the defensive. But war in the strict sense (according to a conception of it that culminated in Foch) does seem to have the battle as its object, whereas guerrilla warfare explicitly aims for the nonbattle. However, the development of war into the war of movement, and into total war, also places the notion of the battle in question, as much from the offensive as the defensive points of view: the concept of the nonbattle seems capable of expressing the speed of a flash attack, and the counterspeed of an immediate response.104 Conversely, the development of guerilla warfare implies a moment when, and forms under which, a battle must be effectively sought, in connection with exterior and interior "support points." And it is true that guerrilla warfare and war proper are constantly borrowing each other's methods and that the borrowings run equally in both directions (for example, stress has often been laid on the inspirations land-based guerrilla warfare received from maritime war). All we can say is that the battle and the nonbattle are the double object of war, according to a criterion that does not coincide with the offensive and the defensive, or even with war proper and guerrilla warfare.
That is why we push the question further back, asking
if war itself is the
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object of the war machine. It is not at all obvious. To the extent that war (with or without the battle) aims for the annihilation or capitulation of enemy forces, the war machine does not necessarily have war as its object (for example, the raid can be seen as another object, rather than as a particular form of war). But more generally, we have seen that the war machine was the invention of the nomad, because it is in its essence the constitutive element of smooth space, the occupation of this space, displacement within this space, and the corresponding composition of people: this is its so1e and veritable positive object (nomos). Make the desert, the steppe, grow; do not depopulate it, quite the contrary. If war necessarily results, it is because the war machine collides with States and cities, as forces (of striation) opposing its positive object: from then on, the war machine has as its enemy the State, the city, the state and urban phenomenon, and adopts as its objective their annihilation. It is at this point that the war machine becomes war: annihilate the forces of the State, destroy the State-form. The Attila, or Genghis Khan, adventure clearly illustrates this progression from the positive object to the negative object. Speaking like Aristotle, we would say that war is neither the condition nor the object of the war machine, but necessarily accompanies or completes it, speaking like Derrida, we would say that war is the "supplement" of the war machine. It may even happen that this supplementarity is comprehended through a progressive, anxiety-ridden revelation. Such, for example, was the adventure of Moses: leaving the Egyptian State behind, launching into the desert, he begins by forming a war machine, on the inspiration of the old past of the nomadic Hebrews and on the advice of his father-in-law, who came from the nomads. This is the machine of the Just, already a war machine, but one that does not yet have war as its object. Moses realizes, little by little, in stages, that war is the necessary supplement of that machine, because it encounters or must cross cities and States, because it must send ahead spies (armed observation), then perhaps take things to extremes (war of annihilation). Then the Jewish people experience doubt, and fear that they are not strong enough: but Moses also doubts, he shrinks before the revelation of this supplement. And it will be Joshua, not Moses, who is charged with waging war. Finally, speaking like Kant, we would say that the relation between war and the war machine is necessary but "synthetic" (Yahweh is necessary for the synthesis).
The question of war, in turn, is pushed further back and
is subordinated to the relations between the war machine and the State
apparatus. States were not the first to make war: war, of course, is not
a phenomenon one finds in the universality of Nature, as nonspecific violence.
But war is not the object of States, quite the contrary. The most archaic
States do not even seem to have had a war machine, and their domination,
as we will see, was
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based on other agencies (comprising, rather the police and prisons). It is safe to assume that the intervention of an extrinsic or nomad war machine that counterattacked and destroyed the archaic but powerful States was one of the mysterious reasons for their sudden annihilation. But the State learns fast. One of the biggest questions from the point of view of universal history is: How will the State appropriate the war machine, that is, constitute one for itself, in conformity with its size, its domination, and its aims? And with what risks? (What we call a military institution, or army, is not at all the war machine in itself, but the form under which it is appropriated by the State.) In order to grasp the paradoxical character of such an undertaking, we must recapitulate the hypothesis in its entirety. (1) The war machine is that nomad invention that in fact has war not as its primary object but as its second-order, supplementary or synthetic objective, in the sense that it is determined in such a way as to destroy the State-form and city-form with which it collides. (2) When the State appropriates the war machine, the latter obviously changes in nature and function, since it is afterward directed against the nomad and all State destroyers, or else expresses relations between States, to the extent that a State undertakes exclusively to destroy another State or impose its aims upon it. (3) It is precisely after the war machine has been appropriated by the State in this way that it tends to take war for its direct and primary object, for its "analytic" object (and that war tends to take the battle for its object). In short, it is at one and the same time that the State apparatus appropriates a war machine that the war machine takes war as its object, and that war becomes subordinated to the aims of the State.
This question of appropriation is so varied historically
that it is necessary to distinguish between several kinds of problems.
The first concerns the possibility of the operation: it is precisely because
war is only the supplementary or synthetic object of the nomad war machine
that it experiences the hesitation that proves fatal to it, and that the
State apparatus for its part is able to lay hold of war and thus turn the
war machine back against the nomads. The hesitation of the nomad is legendary:
What is to be done with the lands conquered and crossed? Return them to
the desert, to the steppe, to open pastureland'? Or let a State apparatus
survive that is capable of exploiting them directly, at the risk of becoming,
sooner or later, simply a new dynasty of that apparatus: sooner or later
because Genghis Khan and his followers were able to holdout for a long
time by partially integrating themselves into the conquered empires while
at the same time maintaining a smooth space on the steppes to which the
imperial centers were subordinated. That was their genius, the Pax Mongolica.
It remains the case that the integration of the nomads into the conquered
empires was one of the most powerful factors of appropriation of the war
machine by the
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419
State apparatus: the inevitable danger to which the nomads succumbed. But there is another danger as well, the one threatening the State when it appropriates the war machine (all States have felt the weight of this danger, as well as the risks this appropriation represents for them). Tamerlane is the extreme example. He was not Genghis Khan's successor but his exact opposite: it was Tamerlane who constructed a fantastic war machine turned back against the nomads, but who, by that very fact, was obliged to erect a State apparatus all the heavier and more unproductive since it existed only as the empty form of appropriation of that machine.105 Turning the war machine back against the nomads may constitute for the State a danger as great as that presented by nomads directing the war machine against States.
A second type of problem concerns the concrete forms the appropriation of the war machine takes: Mercenary or territorial? A professional army or a conscripted army? A special body or national recruiting? Not only are these formulas not equivalent, but there are all the possible mixes between them. Perhaps the most relevant distinction to make, or the most general one, would be: Is there merely "encastment" of the war machine, or "appropriation" proper? The capture of the war machine by the State apparatus took place following two paths, by encasting a society of warriors (who arrived from without or arose from within), or on the contrary by constituting it in accordance with rules corresponding to civil society is a whole. Once again, there is passage and transition from one formula to another. Last, the third type of problem concerns the means of appropriation. We must consider from this standpoint the various data pertaining to the fundamental aspects of the State apparatus: territoriality, work or public works, taxation. The constitution of a military institution or an army necessarily implies a territorialization of the war machine, in other words, the granting of land ("colonial" or domestic), which can take very diverse forms. But at the same time, fiscal regimes determine both the nature of the services and taxes owed by the beneficiary warriors, and especially the kind of civil tax to which all or part of society is subject for the maintenance of the army. And the State enterprise of public works must be reorganized along the lines of a "laying out of the territory" in which the army plays a determining role, not only in the case of fortresses and fortified cities, but also in strategic communication, the logistical structure, the industrial infrastructure, etc, (the role and function of the Engineer in this form of appropriation).106
Let us compare this hypothesis as a whole with Clausewitz's formula:
"War is the continuation of politics by other means."
As we know, this formula is itself extracted from a theoretical and practical,
historic and transhistoric, aggregate whose parts are interconnected. (1)
There is a pure
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concept of war as absolute, unconditioned war, an Idea not given in experience (bring down or "upset" the enemy, who is assumed to have no other determination, with no political, economic, or social considerations entering in). (2) What is given are real wars as submitted to State aims; States are better or worse "conductors" in relation to absolute war, and in any case condition its realization in experience, (3) Real wars swing between two poles, both subject to State politics: the war of annihilation, which can escalate to total war (depending on the objectives of the annihilation) and tends to approach the unconditioned concept via an ascent to extremes: and limited war, which is no "less" a war, but one that effects a descent toward limiting conditions, and can de-escalate to mere "armed observation." 107
In the first place, the distinction between absolute war as Idea and real wars seems to us to be of great importance, but only if a different criterion than that of Clausewitz is applied. The pure Idea is not that of the abstract elimination of the adversary but that of a war machine that does not have war as its object and that only entertains a potential or supplementary synthetic relation with war. Thus the nomad war machine does not appear to us to be one case of real war among others, as in Clausewitz, but on the contrary the content adequate to the Idea, the invention of the Idea, with its own objects, space, and composition of the nomos. Nevertheless it is still an Idea, and it is necessary to retain the concept of the pure Idea, even though this war machine was realized by the nomads. It is the nomads, rather, who remain an abstraction, an Idea, something real and nonactual, and for several reasons: first, because the elements of nomadism, as we have seen, enter into de facto mixes with elements of migration, itinerancy, and transhumance: this does not affect the purity of the concept, but introduces always mixed objects, or combinations of space and composition, which react back upon the war machine from the beginning. Second, even in the purity of its concept, the nomad war machine necessarily effectuates its synthetic relation with war as supplement, uncovered and developed in opposition to the State-form, the destruction of which is at issue. But that is exactly it: it does not effectuate this supplementary object or this synthetic relation without the State, for its part, finding the opportunity to appropriate the war machine, and the means of making war the direct object of this turned-around machine (thus the integration of the nomad into the State is a vector traversing nomadism from the very beginning, from the first act of war against the State).
The question is therefore less the realization of war
than the appropriation of the war machine. It is at the same time that
the State apparatus appropriates the war machine, subordinates it
to its "political" aims, and gives it war as its direct object.
And it is one and the same historical tendency
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that causes State to evolve from a triple point of view:
going from figures of encastment to forms of appropriation proper, going
from limited war to so-called total war, and transforming the relation
between aim and object. The factors that make State war total war are closely
connected to capitalism: it has to do with the investment of constant capital
in equipment, industry, and the war economy, and the investment of variable
capital in the population in its physical and mental aspects (both as warmaker
and as victim of war).108 Total war is not only a war of annihilation
but arises when annihilation takes as its "center" not only the enemy army,
or the enemy State, but the entire population and its economy. The fact
that this double investment can he made only under prior conditions of
limited war illustrates the irresistible character of the capitalist tendency
to develop total war. It is therefore true that total war remains subordinated
to State political aims and merely realizes the maximal conditions
of
the appropriation of the war machine by the State apparatus. But it is
also true that when total war becomes the object of the appropriated war
machine, then at this level in the set of all possible conditions, the
object and the aim enter into new relations that can reach the point of
contradiction. This explains Clausewitz's vacillation when he asserts at
one point that total war remains a war conditioned by the political aim
of States, and at another that it tends to effectuate the Idea of unconditioned
war. In effect, the aim remains essentially political and determined as
such by the State, but the object itself has become unlimited. We could
say that the appropriation has changed direction, or rather, that States
tend to unleash, reconstitute, an immense war machine of which they are
no longer anything more than the opposable or apposed parts. This worldwide
war machine, which in a way "reissues" from the States, displays two successive
figures: first that of fascism, which makes war an unlimited movement with
no other aim than itself; but fascism is only a rough sketch, and the second,
postfascist, figure is that of a war machine that takes peace as its object
directly, as the peace of Terror or Survival. The war machine reforms a
smooth space that now claims to control, to surround the entire earth.
Total war itself is surpassed, toward a form of peace more terrifying still.
The war machine has taken charge of the aim, worldwide order, and the States
are now no more than objects or means adapted to that machine. This is
the point at which Clausewitz's formula is effectively reversed; to be
entitled to say that politics is the continuation of war by other means,
it is not enough to invert the order of the words as if they could bespoken
in either direction; it is necessary to follow the real movement at the
conclusion of which the States, having appropriated a war machine, and
having adapted it to their aims, reimpart a war machine that takes charge
of the aim, appropriates the States, and assumes increasingly wider political
functions.110
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Doubtless, the present situation is highly discouraging. We have watched the war machine grow stronger and stronger, as in a science fiction story: we have seen it assign as its objective a peace still more terrifying than fascist death;' we have seen it maintain or instigate the most terrible of local wars as parts of itself; we have seen it set its sights on a new type of enemy, no longer another State, or even another regime, but the "unspecified enemy"; we have seen it put its counterguerrilla elements into place, so that it can be caught by surprise once, but not twice. Yet the very conditions that make the State or World war machine possible, in other words, constant capital (resources and equipment) and human variable capital, continually recreate unexpected possibilities for counterattack, unforeseen initiatives determining revolutionary, popular, minority, mutant machines. The definition of the Unspecified Enemy testifies to this: "multiform, maneuvering and omnipresent . . . of the moral, political, subversive or economic order, etc.," the unassignable material Saboteur or human Deserter assuming the most diverse forms.111 The first theoretical element of importance is the fact that the war machine has many varied meanings, and this is precisely because the war machine has an extremely variable relation to war itself. The war machine is not uniformly defined, and comprises something other than increasing quantities of force. We have tried to define two poles of the war machine: at one pole, it takes war for its object and forms a line of destruction prolongable to the limits of the universe. But in all of the shapes it assumes here--limited war, total war, worldwide organization--war represents not at all the supposed essence of the war machine but only, whatever the machine's power, either the set of conditions under which the States appropriate the machine, even going so far as to project it as the horizon of the world, or the dominant order of which the States themselves are now only parts. The other pole seemed to be the essence; it is when the war machine with infinitely lower "quantities," has as its object not war but the drawing of a creative line of flight, the composition of a smooth space, and of the movement of people in that space. At this other pole, the machine does indeed encounter war, but as its supplementary or synthetic object, now directed against the State and against the worldwide axiomatic expressed by States.
We thought it possible to assign the invention of the
war machine to the nomads. This was done only in the historical interest
of demonstrating that the war machine as such was invented, even if it
displayed from the beginning all of the ambiguity that caused it to enter
into composition with the other pole, and swing toward it from the start.
However, in conformity with the essence, the nomads do not hold the secret:
an "ideological," scientific, or artistic movement can be a potential war
machine, to the precise extent to which it draws, in relation to a phylum,
a plane of consistency, a creative
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line of flight, a smooth space of displacement.
It is not the nomad who defines this constellation of characteristics;
it is this constellation that defines the nomad, and at the same time the
essence of the war machine. If guerrilla warfare, minority warfare, revolutionary
and popular war are in conformity with the essence, it is because they
take war as an object all the more necessary for being merely "supplementary":
they can make war only on the condition that they simultaneously create
something else, if only new nonorganic social relations. The difference
between the two poles is great, even, and especially, from the point of
view of death: the line of flight that creates, or turns into a
line of destruction; the plane of consistency that constitutes itself,
even piece by piece, or turns into a plan(e) of organization and
domination. We are constantly reminded that there is communication between
these two lines or planes, that each takes nourishment from the other,
borrows from the other: the worst of the world war machines reconstitutes
a smooth space to surround and enclose the earth. But the earth asserts
its own powers of deterritorialization, its lines of flight, its smooth
spaces that live and blaze their way for a new earth. The question is not
one of quantities but of the incommensurable character of the quantities
that confront one another in the two kinds of war machine, according to
the two poles. War machines take shape against the apparatuses that appropriate
the machine and make war their affair and their object: they bring connections
to bear against the great conjunction of the apparatuses of capture or
domination.