The Administrative Translation of Force
The most effective way to hide force may be to describe it perfectly - as a process.
A missile strike can become a targeting operation.
Civilian deaths can become a collateral estimate.
Surveillance can become risk assessment.
Occupation can become security management.
Escalation can become something to optimize.
None of these expressions necessarily deny what happened.
That is exactly the problem.
The violence can remain visible while the grammar changes what kind of event the reader thinks they are seeing.
Instead of an actor using force against another actor, the event begins to look like a technical system processing variables.
Targets are validated.
Risks are scored.
Threats are assessed.
Collateral effects are estimated.
Escalation is managed.
Responses are optimized.
The language sounds precise.
It may even be more precise than ordinary political language.
But precision does not automatically preserve responsibility.
This is the problem I...
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