Anthony Fry

While prior reference has been made to the breakdown of the binary relation between war and peace it is now looked at in some detail. Initially, the problem of the concept of peace in the late modern world, and the nature, hopes, failures and history of peace activism and studies are all considered—this from the perspectives of philosophy and institution. Then the redundancy of peace is considered against the backdrop of the changing character and future of war. The relation of peace to the state and democracy is also discussed. Unstaging war is then positioned, this as underpinning the entire critique of peace, and in the recognition that another discourse and practice is now needed to counter the propensity and omnipresence of the pluralisation of war.

A discussion of peace continues here, but moves from a conjunctural critique of the concept to examine the political and ideological contexts. There will be a critical, historical and contemporary politically framed focus upon nationalism, idealism and cosmopolitism. The argument put forward will acknowledge that geopolitical tensions and climate change are currently transforming perspectives of how the relations between the Global North and Global South are seen—including acknowledging those perspectives from indigenous cultures. Again, but in the context outline, Unstaging War will be introduced strategically and futurally as an opening into another way of thinking and acting in recognition of the redundancy of the concept and institutions of peace and its accompanying political ideologies.

This book presents the concept of ‘unstaging’ war as a strategic response to the failure of the discourse and institutions of peace. This failure is explained by exploring the changing character of conflict in current and emergent global circumstances, such as asymmetrical conflicts, insurgencies, and terrorism. Fry argues that this pluralisation of war has broken the binary relation between war and peace: conflict is no longer self-evident, and consequentially the changes in the conditions, nature, systems, philosophies and technologies of war must be addressed. Through a deep understanding of contemporary war, Fry explains why peace fails as both idea and process, before presenting ‘Unstaging War’ as a concept and nascent practice that acknowledges conflict as structurally present, and so is not able to be dealt with by attempts to create peace. Against a backdrop of increasingly tense relations between global power blocs, the beginnings of a new nuclear arms race, and the ever-increasing human and environmental impacts of climate change, a more viable alternative to war is urgently needed. Unstaging War is not claimed as a solution, but rather as an exploration of critical problems and an opening into the means of engaging with them.

The book presents the case for the making of a new political imagination by offering a critique of existing political institutions, philosophy and practices that are unable to provide the thinking, means and leadership to deal with the complexity and crises of specific locales and the world at large. The authors make clear that there is a fundamental disjuncture between the complexity of the combined critical conditions that are now putting life on Earth at risk, and the divisions and theories of knowledge that are dominantly and instrumentally trying to understand the situation. In response this work makes the case for the need for a new political imagination that rejects the sufficiency of existing political ideologies (including democracy) being the end point of politics. The book tackles the political underpinnings of social and economic life in a world still embedded in the inequities of the afterlife of colonialism and state socialism. Thereafter it engages narratives of change, rethinks imagination and critical practices, to finally present a relationally connected way to move forward.