Everyday Counterinsurgency

Abstract

What makes an occurrence or practice “everyday” is the extent to which it is unremarkable, taken-for-granted, or ostensibly natural (see the helpful elaboration by Enloe, in this forum). War operations seemingly lie far afield from everyday activities, unless the focal-point is the experience of combat participants themselves. For those on a 12-month deployment overseas or unlucky enough to live near a foreign combat outpost, foot patrols, convoys, detentions, and checkpoints are everyday occurrences. While International Relations scholarship typically treats combat as an exceptional state of affairs requiring explanation, the everyday activities of professional combatants (or militants in an occupied country) focus on preparing to purposefully kill other humans. Rendering the exceptional routine is the hard work required of combatants. Training regimes are designed to make this easier, with mock cities and war games as “rehearsals” for combat in Afghanistan or Iraq, all part of a determined effort to psychologically “prepare” warriors for killing (Grossman 1995:sections 1, 4; Rose 1999:15–52). From basic training onward, exercises automate responses to commands, while shooting drills make aiming and firing a weapon at a human-shaped target normal. In the repetition of these and other practices, a particular type of person is called for, and combatants must work upon themselves to “be all that they can be” (cf. Sasson-Levy 2007).