Chaos, mimesis and dehumanisation in Iraq: American counterinsurgency in the global War on Terror

Abstract

This article examines how the military dimension of the global clash between the cellular system of nonstate networks and the vertebrate system of nation-states, as formulated by Arjun Appadurai, was played out in counterinsurgency operations between US troops and Iraqi insurgents during the Iraq War between 2004 and 2006. It demonstrates how American forces embraced the insurgency's networked tactics when massive assault operations failed. Informed by social mimesis and Manichaeism, counterinsurgency units enhanced the chaos of local battle spaces, dehumanised combatants hiding among the people, and thereby increased civilian deaths at checkpoints, during raids and in detention centres.