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ABSTRACTHow is the protracted and non-decisive Afghan conflict understood by the British military personnel in charge of air support? Based on a study of autobiographical sources and relying on Bruno Latour’s anthropological work, this article argues that personnel produce a specific self-justificatory culture based on what can be achieved by the technologies (ammunition, weapons, aircraft) used. This article highlights how technologies become an ‘actant’, influencing the way air personnel elaborate representations of their role and their enemies. More specifically, this analysis underlines how airpower technologies contribute to the framing of Others as depoliticized enemies (i.e. targets) to be destroyed by machines. Machines and weapons are not neutral instruments but rather devices that participate in the normalization of the use of force.

The possession of nuclear weapons is not to be considered as an irreversible phenomenon. Taking this idea as a point of departure, we have decided to investigate not why France has acquired nuclear weapons but instead the reason for which she retains them. More specifically, our attention was directed to the years 1990-2000. During those years, a relatively important nuclear strategic debate occurred. It way an opportunity for strategists to reaffirm how useful the weapon is. Trough this debate, strategists described an uncertain international context that they consider unfit to question the relevance of the nuclear armament. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]