Introduction

A world waiting to be born: Charting a liberatory anti-war praxis

“…Resolving that contradiction requires hermeneutical rebellion (Fricker, 2007) that seeks to uncover the absurdities in authoritative interpretations of American violence as well-intentioned, defensive (Blain and Kearns-Blain, 2018), progressive (Nguyen, 2012), and/or humanitarian. It is in the spirit of rebellion that I offer the following, which should be read as a refutation of the common-sense assumptions about American war.…”

“…There is an urgent and ongoing need for Americans to confront the global violence of our government. This includes American scholars—international relations specialists, political sociologists, geographers, and others—who ought to engage directly with the actual human pain and suffering caused by the geopolitical violence that sustains American empire (Blain and Kearns-Blain, 2018; Inhorn, 2018). The United States has wrought immense suffering for over two centuries, beginning with the conquest of a continent (Brown, 1970; Madley, 2016; Vine, 2020) and expanding outward to all corners of the globe (Bevins, 2020; Dower, 2017b).…”

“…12 It is easy to reject the arguments of those who explicitly support American empire and its claimed right to maintain dominance through violence. But it is also critical to interrogate the premises of liberal war (Nguyen, 2012) and progressive violence (Blain and Kearns-Blain, 2018), through which states claim to “save” others from oppression through more violence. Because liberal war justifications are so easily invoked to cause immense death and destruction, deconstructing states’ claims to progressive violence is as important as working against transparently reactionary violence.…”