Publication

This publication illustrates how the Bush administration attributes its successful invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq to tactics in Sun Tzu's "The Art of War" such as "shock and awe" and "decapitation." The authors explain, however, that neither exists in Sun Tzu's manual, and that this misappropriation reinforces an imperial hypermasculinity in US foreign policy given its neoliberal logic of "conversion or discipline" for self/other relations. The publication argues that in misappropriating Sun Tzu the Bush administration turns "The Art of War" into mere kitsch.