A civilizational imaginary of Western military technology

Abstract

In this article, I detail the “power and persistence” of civilizational ideas in the Western military-technological space. Technology, I argue, has long functioned as a signifier of so-called “Western civilization”: technological mastery was and continues to be drawn upon as a marker of “civilized peoples” and “civilized warfare”. Technology has also functioned as a safeguard of Western civilization, with techno-military innovations harnessed to contest and dominate others, including those deemed “uncivilized”. Though linked through a shared assumption of civilizational pre-eminence, these dual understandings of technology have historically produced a tension, between restrained and limitless violence. This civilizational imaginary endures today in the context of military AI. Assumptions of civilizational supremacy, I argue, underpin Western claims of responsible technological custodianship, while oxygenating discourses and practices of unrestrained violence.