Becoming Hybrid: Towards a Critical Theory of Agency in War

Abstract

Institutional military strategists are developing theories of asymmetric and unconventional warfare that complicate the notion of strategic agency, the idea that military action emanates from a coherent agential source or subjectivity. This thesis attempts to push the conceptual trajectories of the theories of Hybrid War, Unrestricted War and Onto-power towards an even more radical complication of the notion of strategy - towards an ecological understanding of war as an unwinnable, self-perpetuating process. Recent geopolitical events are meticulously examined, as are institutional doctrinal and theoretical frameworks that stop just short of imploding the conventional agential notion of strategy. Insights from the work of Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, as well as Brian Massumi, particularly the concepts of multiplicity, assemblage, and ontopower, are employed in the thesis, which is itself a "heterogeneous assemblage" of elements ranging from Israeli war theory and Chinese military doctrine to etymology and post-structuralist philosophy.

Author Keywords: Agency, Assemblage, Deleuze, Hybrid warfare, Multiplicity, Strategy

    Item Description
    Type
    Contributors
    Creator (cre): Noiseux, Joshua David
    Thesis advisor (ths): Stavro, Elaine
    Degree committee member (dgc): Holdsworth, David
    Degree granting institution (dgg): Trent University
    Date Issued
    2015
    Date (Unspecified)
    2015
    Place Published
    Peterborough, ON
    Language
    Extent
    153 pages
    Rights
    Copyright is held by the author, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise noted.
    Local Identifier
    TC-OPET-10311
    Publisher
    Trent University
    Degree
    Master of Arts (M.A.): Theory, Culture and Politics