Great power governmentality? Coincidence and parallelism in the new strategic guidance for the US Department of Defense

Abstract

In January 2012, the US administration released new strategic guidance for the Department of Defense entitled ‘Sustaining US Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense’. Two different security approaches seem to coincide in this document. By providing a governmental reading of the new strategic guidance, the aim of this article is to discuss if and how the guidance links a sovereign security understanding of great power politics on one side to governmental rationalities on the other. First, the guidance is discussed with regard to its main aims and strategies; then, second, the impact of governmentality in the guidance is revealed and systematized. Finally, the function that governmental logics have in the document, and the conceptual and political role that the minimally mediated encounter of sovereign (military) power politics with governmental rationalities plays, are considered.

Keywords

Europe and Asia governmentality power projection securitization security theory sovereignty US military and armed forces

Introduction

On 5 January 2012, the US administration released new strategic guidance for the Department of Defense (DoD), entitled ‘Sustaining US Global Leadership: Priorities for 21st Century Defense’ (DoD, 2012). The guidance document is intended as a policy paper for ‘practitioners’ in the field of military policy and the armed forces, and is introduced by two preceding letters, one from the President and the other from the Secretary of Defense. Although it has the length, format and official, as well as legal, status of technical advice for concrete implementation, President Barack Obama outlined the guidance himself in ‘an unusual appearance at the Pentagon briefing room’ (Bumiller and Shanker, 2012). Such a personal appearance seems reasonable in the context of the onset of the presidential campaign and Republican accusations of Democratic shortcomings in defense policy. However, apart from such a possible tactical reasoning in view of the presidential campaign, the personal presentation also hints at the political importance of the new guidance which is aimed at outlining future US military policies.

In fact, the document is the first broad and all-encompassing military concept of the Obama administration. Beside its particular status as the first such document of the current government, the political as well as the conceptual weight of the guidance lies in its function as a focused military concretization of the 2010 National Security Strategy (NSS) (The White House, 2010).¹ By concretizing and translating the NSS into military practice, the guidance is meant to shape the military side of US security policy in the coming years. While the NSS has a much broader scope – it tries to cover the entire range of security-related topics and, thus, outlines the basic intentions and general directions of US security at large – the strategic guidance explicitly focuses on military policy as one core aspect of US security policy. As such, it reveals which issues and problems, from the US perspective, call for the military and seeks to sketch concrete policies, hence addressing the level of concrete policy implementation and realization.

At the same time, the guidance is significant and worthy of discussion because its concretization of military policy veers away from preceding security papers of the Obama administration (The White House, 2010, 2011, 2012) and, in particular, departs from the general tenor of the 2010 NSS. The NSS was considered to break with the general line of the military-, great power-oriented security policy of the previous administration (The White House, 2002, 2006) – including ‘many subtle slaps at former President George W. Bush’ (Sanger and Baker, 2010). In contrast, the 2012 guidance, as will be shown, re-shifts the focus toward a much more traditional, military- and great power-oriented perspective that Walt (2012) evaluates as interventionist in the sense ‘that the US intends to retain the capability to use force just about anywhere it decides it wants to’. Thus, it seems both justified and necessary to acknowledge the particular political as well as strategic status and importance of the guidance and to take it seriously as a policy paper that concretizes, substantiates and shapes future US military imperatives and policies.

Finally, another reason that underlines the importance of this document – and which might have led the presidential commander-in-chief to present the guidance himself – is the double aim of the document as both a military and a budgetary paper. In fact, in public debate budgetary restraints are being considered as one of the main motives for this new military strategic guidance (Bumiller and Shanker, 2012; Whitlock and Jaffe, 2012). However, the guidance does not clarify definitively whether or not the defense budget will really decrease – and even if it does, this will hardly endanger the global US military advantage established through the roughly 80% increase in the US defense budget (excluding the Iraq and Afghanistan wars) in the past 10 years (Thimm, 2012). Nonetheless, it is both the determination to halt further increases in military spending and the wish to pave the way for possible future cuts that contributed to the release of a basic strategic guidance. This is also emphasized by Obama as one of the main causes for the reforms.² Thus while on the one hand the strategic guidance as a code for military practice speaks the sovereign language of power politics, on the other hand one of the main incentives for the reform seems to lie within budgetary, and thus economic, logics and dynamics. Although the budgetary implication of the guidance will not be the primary focus of my interest, the financial concern nonetheless suggests that the guidance might be embedded in patterns of (neo-)liberal political economy, understood in a broader governmental sense as an encompassing politico-conceptual assemblage (see Evans, 2010: 429–431; Aradau, 2010; Bröckling, 2011).³

It is thus advisable to take a closer look at the guidance, with particular attention given to possible connections of traditional military government and governmental scopes, and to examine if and, in particular, how a governmental security dispositif gains ground in the guidance.⁴ Since governmental logics transcend a narrow sovereignty- and military-focused understanding of security (e.g. Dillon, 2004; Bigo, 2008), it seems both interesting and conceptually relevant to ponder how such rationalities find their way into the new strategic guidance for the US DoD – a document apriori unsuspicious of deviating from traditional military force-oriented aims and sovereign logics. In doing so, my reading of the document relies on the difference between sovereign and governmental rationalities explained by Foucault, and refers this distinction to the security logics that appear in the strategic guidance. In fact, Foucault explicitly pointed out that we should not imagine the difference between the sovereign, the disciplinary and the governmental form of power as being clear-cut, or regard their historical genealogy as a clear sequential succession, but, rather, as complex configurations and fluent chronological passages (Foucault, 2004a: 17–26, 134–165, 2004b: 427, 435ff). However, this does not, of course, imply that the different forms of power outlined by Foucault are indistinguishable on the systematic level. Thus, my reading will be informed by Foucault’s distinction between, on the one hand, a traditional – and for Foucault even anachronistic and outdated – sovereign idea and form of power that is characterized by a juridical logic and its narrow concentration on the state as a centralized and hierarchic institutional entity as well as on the sovereign’s organized and repressive means of force (Foucault, 1975, 1978, 2004a: 19) and, on the other hand, the rationalities of governmentality, which broaden the scope and realm of security, are rooted in political economy, rely on liberal techniques of subjectivization, have a biopolitical emphasis and are embedded in truth-producing discourses (Foucault, 2004a: 134–165).⁵ While, of course, not every broader, more inclusive concept of security is a governmental one, it is important to note that narrow, hierarchical, military-repressive and government-centric – that is, sovereign security – understandings are definitely not governmental. This is why – according to both Foucault and Buzan et al. (1998: 207), as well as to the broad and detailed overview on ISS provided by Buzan and Hansen (2009: 12, 162–163, 187–189, 272) – when referring to traditional or, in Foucault’s terminology, sovereign security, I mean those security notions and policies that are narrow in that they either exclusively focus on, or at least conceptually prioritize, the military as policy sector and the state as main security agent, based on (conventional) understandings of national sovereignty, international power politics and force-oriented geopolitics. While following and adhering to the conceptual difference between sovereignty and governmentality outlined by Foucault does not deny the historical and empirical ties between these logics of power, taking their conceptual differences into account is necessary in this article because of the way in which different security rationalities appear and are interrelated in the strategic guidance.

From a governmental perspective, however, it is not surprising per se that liberal security logics are linked and refer to military instruments and techniques. In fact, Foucault himself highlighted the reliance of liberal governmental security on sovereign technologies (Foucault, 1975, 1978, 2001a, 2001b). As Dillon (2004, 2007) and Dillon and Reid (2009) have demonstrated, liberal governmentality is intrinsically linked to the use of military violence for biopolitical aims. But while Dillon and Reid (2009) as well as Kiersey (2010) show that governmental policies use military techniques for biopolitical targets, what we see in the guidance is – in contrast and somewhat surprisingly in this context – a sovereign state- and military-centric understanding of security, which then makes reference and resorts to governmental logics. Studying the guidance is interesting because of the particular way and configuration in which sovereign and governmental security logics appear.

Thus, as I will argue, the guidance is remarkable because of the distinctiveness, immediacy and clarity with which both sovereign and governmental security logics are introduced, presented and dialectically joined – precisely by not merging or bringing them together in a direct and explicit manner. The document is an interesting and politically weighty demonstration and example of a separating but parallelized configuration of sovereign and governmental rationalities in US military policy. Rather than an instrumental reference of governmental security to sovereign security technologies, the interrelation between sovereign and governmental logics in the document seems to display a parallel and dialectical structure. Therefore, the aim of this present article is to analyze the strategic guidance document with regard to the concomitance of and interrelation between a sovereign perspective and governmental logics. Drawing on insights from governmentality studies, I intend to expose how the ‘permanent priority [given] to one sector (the military) and one actor (the state)’ (Buzan et al., 1998: 207), which is more than obvious in the document, is linked and resorts to governmental rationalities.⁶ The governmental reading of the guidance suggests that sovereign and governmental security understandings might simultaneously coincide, work in parallel and in a dialectical relation, and thus are not necessarily mutually implicated or merged, but might correlate in different forms (Collier, 2009: 99–100). As will be outlined, the very particular configuration of the relationship between sovereign and governmental logics in the guidance can be considered to open up a wide strategic and empirical horizon for US military security policy.

Thus I will propose a governmental reading of the new strategic guidance and its security assessment, outlook and envisaged policies. This can help with achieving a better understanding and assessment of the relation between sovereign security imperatives and governmental security rationalities in terms of political implementation and practice. Such an attempt also addresses the need for more empirical examinations of governmental perspectives in International Relations. Following Kienscherf, that theoretical insights of the governmentality debate ‘should be complemented by more empirical interrogations’ (Kienscherf, 2011: 518), the strategic guidance seems worthy of analysis precisely because it is on the one hand a conceptual paper but, on the other hand, a manual for application in practice. It thus takes a middle position and bridges the gap between a conceptual outline taking a stance in the political discourse (like the NSS) and a technical manual for direct implementation (addressed to the armed forces). This conceptual–practical mid-position can be expected to provide relevant insights into future US security policy from a governmental perspective. In addition, the somewhat instrumental perspective on the relation between governmental and sovereign logics in governmentality theory, in which liberal governmentality refers to and uses sovereign means, might be complemented by discussing the guidance as an almost paradigmatic empirical example of a very traditional, sovereign security concept reaching out for governmental answers and techniques.

First, the guidance will be discussed with regard to the main aims and strategies it presents in order to guarantee ‘US Global Leadership’ (DoD, 2012). Here, the traditional adherence of the guidance to a narrow, state-, sovereignty- and military power-oriented security understanding will become obvious. Then, second, the governmental impact of the document will be revealed and systematized. It will become clear that as well as the sovereign security stance of the guidance, governmental rationalities and measures play a considerable role and are introduced in a somewhat unexpected, direct manner. The interrelation and tension between these two logics will also be discussed. I will consider which function governmental logics fulfill in the guidance and which conceptual as well as political role the minimally mediated encounter of very traditional, sovereign power politics and governmental rationalities plays.

Sovereignty and great power politics: A very traditional military policy paper

The guidance document is subdivided into three major sections together with a short introduction and conclusion. The first main section outlines the ‘Challenging Global Security Environment’ (DoD, 2012: 1–3). The second part is dedicated to the ‘Primary Missions of the US Armed Forces’ (2012: 4–6). The final section sketches the political path and policy priorities ‘Toward the Joint Force of 2020’ (2012: 6–8), and thus concretizes the general security assessment in the first section and the programmatic outline in the second section. I will discuss next the first two sections of the guidance; the third section of the guidance will be central to the subsequent part of this article, ‘Governmental answers to sovereign questions’.

From the short, introductory paragraphs, and from the beginning of the first section, it becomes immediately apparent that the guidance follows a sovereignty-centered understanding of security and security policy. The few quasi-governmental notions in the first section in no way shape the guidance’s general assessment, but instead demonstrate the marginalization of governmental rationalities rather than their importance. Starting with the general idea that in order to ‘protect our interests […] all elements of US national power must be applied’ (DoD, 2012: 1), the document continues with a description of the major demands for current and future security policy. This outline, in terms of both language and the problems or tasks it mentions, clearly argues within very traditional, sovereign national security doctrines. Although not numerically listed, six particular challenges can be assembled and distinguished as building the core of the guidance’s general security assessment.

First, and perhaps foremost, the aim to ‘rebalance toward the Asia-Pacific region’ is highlighted as the main geopolitical readjustment of the US security focus. Beside the strategic partnership with India and the deterrence against North Korea, the guidance underlines in particular the need to maintain the ‘US influence in this region’, especially with regard to ‘the growth of China’s military power’. Since this growth, according to the guidance, tends to lack clarity of its intentions and to cause ‘friction in the region’, the main strategic goal is ‘to ensure that we maintain regional access and the ability to operate freely’ and to work ‘closely with our network of allies and partners’ (DoD, 2012: 2).

Second, with regard to the Middle East, the guidance outlines five major security goals. While the ‘integration of the region into global markets’ (The White House, 2010: 24), defined as an important regional aim in the 2010 NSS, is not mentioned, the guidance (DoD, 2012: 2) highlights the nuclear and political containment of Iran; ‘standing up for Israel’s security and a comprehensive Middle East peace’; the fight against ‘violent extremists and destabilizing threats’; the support of new governments after the ‘Arab Awakening’ which should become ‘more stable and reliable partners of the United States’; and the non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). In order to reach these objectives, the guidance stresses that the USA ‘will continue to place a premium on US and allied military presence’.

Third, although the guidance does not make any concrete quantitative commitments with regard to the ongoing military focus on the Middle East or the increased attention on the Asia-Pacific region, it is quite clear that these shifts will be made possible by a decreasing military presence in Europe, while further ‘bolstering the strength and vitality of NATO’ and continuing to ‘build a closer relationship’ with Russia (DoD, 2012: 3)

Fourth, terrorist activities are recognized to be ongoing threats to ‘US interests, allies, partners, and the homeland’ (DoD, 2012: 1). Of course, a focus on counter-terrorist action does not indicate or necessarily result from a traditional, sovereign security perspective. As outlined, for instance, by Aradau and van Munster (2007), Dillon (2007), Bigo and Tsoukala (2008) and Gilmore (2011), counter-terrorist policies have often been embedded in broader governmental frameworks and biopolitical rationalities. However, in this part of the guidance, the entry and accentuation of terrorist threats is conceptually very limited and, if I may say so, not biopolitically inclusive. Rather, the explanation of the counter-terrorist aim adheres to the general geostrategic territorial and sovereign scope displayed in the guidance, also because particular states, as well as South Asia and the Middle East, are identified as the ‘primary loci of these threats’ (DoD, 2012: 1).

The same traditional geostrategic connotation can be found in the fifth problem area detected in the guidance. Although it is not stated that the fight against the proliferation of WMD is to be restricted to particular regions, a regional and state focus (on the Middle East and Asia) is underlined both in the respective geopolitical paragraphs as well as by the warning against ‘regional state actors’ seeking WMD (DoD, 2012: 3).

Finally, the sixth main security challenge mentioned in the guidance lacks any particular geopolitical indication. It states the necessity ‘to assure access to and use of the global commons’ in order to ‘enable economic growth and commerce’. Apart from the ‘free flow of goods’, cyber-attacks are mentioned as particular threats (DoD, 2012: 3, italics original). Only this sixth and last problem area seems to transcend the narrow, geopolitical as well as state- and military-centric understanding of security and might be seen in the context of a wider governmental concept of security, in which liberal economy and security merge. As Jabri argues, ‘the economic, the political, the military and the cultural […] are complexes that constitute the global as a sector of governmental practices’ (Jabri, 2006: 59; see also Aradau, 2010: 504; Traub-Werner, 2007).

However, precisely because assessing the governmental merge of – broadly speaking – security imperatives and political economy is convincing from a theoretical point of view, and is mirrored in US security strategies and policies, it is even more remarkable that the language and manner of presenting this sixth problem area in the guidance neither includes references to broader governmental rationalities nor really transcends a sovereign understanding of security.^7,8 This is not to say that the governmental nexus between liberal economy and security does not pertain here at all. However, the contextualization of economic interests takes place in sovereign terms and does not amount to the broader economy of security characteristic of governmental politics. Rather, economic scopes are mentioned as just one field amongst others of US national interest (DoD, 2012: 2) and pursued ‘in conjunction with allies’ (DoD, 2012: 3) within the greater strategic duties and tasks of the military (DoD, 2012: 2–3). Not only is the introduction here of economic matters quite peripheral, but also it reflects the sovereign understanding of economic wealth as the basis for military and political power (Mearsheimer, 2001: 55–82) rather than speaking the language of liberal governmentality. The same narrow idea of security can also be detected with regard to the problem of cyber-attacks, which are understood in a sovereignty-centered manner as threatening ‘military operations and our homeland’ (DoD, 2012: 3). Neither the sixth problem area nor some putative governmental catchwords in this section of the guidance go beyond a sovereign security perspective.

The prevalence of a sovereign security narrative is even stronger in the document’s second section, in which the general security assessment is specified for the ‘Primary Missions of the US Armed Forces’ (DoD, 2012: 4). There are 10 major missions and aims presented in an enumerative list, which range from counter-terrorism and aggression defense to humanitarian and disaster relief.⁹ While at first glance this seems to indicate the use of a wider security approach, possibly allowing governmental logics to gain ground, the guidance makes explicitly clear that only four of these 10 aims are seen as priorities (DoD, 2012: 6). From the four pre-eminent strategic targets – which consist of counter-terrorism, aggression deterrent and defense, nuclear deterrent, and homeland defense (DoD, 2012: 6) – only the first in this list transcends a sovereign security understanding. In addition, even with regard to counter-terrorism the guidance is restrained in broadening this aim beyond a state- and military-centric policy. Not only does the counter-terrorism paragraph present transnational terrorism as a rather conventional, geopolitical and territorial challenge, but also the following two points – ‘Deter and Defeat Aggression’ and ‘Project Power Despite Anti-Access/Area Denial Challenges’ – do not even resume the topic of terrorism. Essentially they argue within traditional, territorial geopolitical narratives, that is, within ‘traditional geostrategic goals associated with sovereignty’ (Dillon, 2004: 76), and do not refer to governmental logics of geopolitics ‘as a biopolitical project’ (Dillon, 2004: 76, italics original). For instance, the aim to ‘Project Power Despite Anti-Access/Area Denial Challenges’ (DoD, 2012: 4) can be seen as being prone to a broader governmental and biopolitical perspective; however, neither is realized or implicated here. In contrast, the focus is on the possibility of pursuing a ‘large-scale operation in one region’, while simultaneously deterring and defeating ‘an opportunistic aggressor in a second region’ (DoD, 2012: 4, italics original). The phenomenon of asymmetric warfare is, meanwhile, reduced to inter-state confrontations, in particular vis-a-vis Iran and China (DoD, 2012: 4).

Furthermore, the description in the guidance of ‘Stabilizing Presence’ as well as ‘Stability and Counterinsurgency Operations’ (2012: 5–6) – which, in the case of Afghanistan and Iraq, were seen by the US government and the armed forces ‘as a panacea for fighting global terrorism’ (Kienscherf, 2011: 519), and which worked as a door-opener for governmental rationalities (Lipschutz and Rowe, 2005: 13; Aradau and van Munster, 2007; Dillon, 2007) – reads as a retreat from these goals rather than underlining their importance. Walt (2012) even recognizes a ‘clear de-emphasis on counter-insurgency and nation-building’. Although ‘Stabilizing Presence’ as well as ‘Stability and Counterinsurgency Operations’ (DoD, 2012: 5–6) are mentioned as being imperative, the main outcome of their inclusion is the explicit announcement that both the possibility to conduct such missions and the frequency of doing so will be severely reduced (DoD, 2012: 6). This is quite remarkable, because the counter-insurgency doctrine is a somewhat new approach (US Department of the Army, 2006) and – as Gilmore (2011: 21–22) shows – has until now been seen by the US administration to correspond to the challenge of asymmetric warfare and counter-terrorism. However, with regard to the question at issue in this article, Kienscherf (2011) has demonstrated that the counter-insurgency doctrine is linked to a particular biopolitical conceptualization of human security, while Lipschutz and Rowe have pointed out that the ‘current “War on Terrorism”’ works ‘as a form of governmentalism under the direction of Washington, DC’ (Lipschutz and Rowe, 2005: 13). Thus, the guidance’s move away from such missions strengthens sovereign military security logics as compared to a ‘people-centred turn within US military doctrine’ (Gilmore, 2011: 34), which would correspond to the rationalities and technologies characteristic of the biopolitical security dispositif of governmentality (Dillon, 2007; Kienscherf, 2011; de Larrinaga and Doucet, 2008; Joseph, 2011; Vasilache, 2011a; Watson, 2011).

In sum, it becomes obvious that both the global security assessment in the first section and the ‘Primary Missions’ (DoD, 2012: 4) outlined in the second section of the guidance speak the sovereign, state- and military-centric, as well as traditional geopolitical, language of great power politics (Mearsheimer, 2001) and are embedded in what Wasinski – although with a more concrete focus – calls the ‘military grand narrative’ (2011: 57). This is remarkable because, in particular, the latter aspects and emphases of the guidance would have allowed, or even suggested, their relation and embeddedness in a broader context of governmental, biopolitical rationalities – given the governmental shaping of US military and security policies in earlier years (Grondin, 2010; Kienscherf, 2011; Kiersey, 2010; Gilmore, 2011), reflected for instance in the 2010 NSS, the 2011 International Strategy for Cyberspace and the 2012 National Strategy for Biosurveillance (The White House, 2010, 2011, 2012, respectively). However, this is not the case in the first two sections of the guidance. Rather, the very traditional, sovereign angle of the guidance is mirrored and further accentuated in the rhetoric of great power and national glorification, proclaiming that ‘the United States of America will remain the greatest force […] that the world has ever known’ with the best ‘fighting force in history’ (DoD, 2012: Introductory Letter). In its two first sections, the guidance follows a narrow understanding of military (national) security and barely transcends the (neo-)realist logics of sovereign state survival (Mearsheimer, 2001: 138–167), of international anarchy, alliance-building and military supremacy (Mearsheimer, 2001: 29–54, 234–333), of territorial ‘Primacy of Land Power’ (Mearsheimer, 2001: 83, see 83–137), and finally of inter-state war (Mearsheimer, 2001: 138–167, 334–359). It lacks any indication of embedding its security diagnosis, aims and concepts into a broader scope of liberal, biopolitical governmentality – because the characteristic traits for such a conceptual conjunction and embeddedness are absent. At best we might recognize some aspects of Foucault’s description of the early raison d’état without, however, the important features outlined by Foucault as characteristic of biopolitical, governmental rationalities (Foucault, 2004a: 425–442, 454–455, 2004b: 18–32, 82–88) such as, for instance, the international self-restraint of the state or its interest in the human factor.

Thus, the sovereign security angle is evident in particular with regard to those aspects that are absent. According to Daase (2010: 10), wider understandings of security – which include the governmental understanding – are characterized by enlarging the reference point of security (from state to individual), its subject matters and topics (from military to humanitarian), its spatial scope (from national to global) and the dimension of endangerment (from threat to risk). The security assessment and mission outline of the guidance lack all of these conceptual enlargements, which are characteristic of wider security concepts in general and of biopolitical, governmental security rationalities in particular. While the problems and priorities named in the guidance might well be deployed and embedded in the context of wider and inclusive security approaches, as well as in governmental rationalities, the first two sections of the guidance lack almost any inclination to do so.¹⁰ Even the spatial scope in the first section is explicitly justified in terms of territoriality and national power projection. It is aimed at securing the ‘homeland’ (DoD, 2012: 1, 3) and what are defined to be US sovereign national security interests. Also, there is no evidence of the power–knowledge nexus, which is crucial for governmental power and governmental security (e.g. Foucault, 2004a: 111, 116, 120, 162–163, 2004b: 51–64; Wasinski, 2011: 58; Valverde and Mopas, 2004: 237). Far from presenting an encompassing security understanding (see Brauch et al., 2009; Schuck, 2011; also Amelina and Vasilache, 2014), ecological, health, welfare distribution, migration, organized crime issues and similar challenges are not considered at all. Neither the general security evaluation nor the major missions of the guidance provide or show characteristic aspects of governmental logics. The guidance lacks a biopolitical focus on populations and, with it, on individual behavior and on subjectivization characteristics of governmentality (Dean, 2007: 82; Dillon, 2007; Kienscherf, 2011; de Larrinaga and Doucet, 2008; Vasilache, 2011a; Watson, 2011). It lacks the broad and trans-sectoral securitization and insecuritization dynamics (Bigo, 2008; Bigo and Tsoukala, 2008), the universal and global scope (Fougner, 2008; Joseph, 2011; Larner and Walters, 2004; Neumann and Sending, 2007; Vasilache, 2011b) as well as the shift ‘From Dangerousness to Risk’ (Castel, 1991), which are core for liberal governmentality.¹¹ In short, the content and prose of the guidance is bound to the logics of sovereignty-centered national security; one could say that it reflects sovereign imperial logics rather than empire, and an idea of government that does not seem to provide a systematic link or a connection to governmental rationalities.

Governmental answers to sovereign questions

Following the general security assessment and the description of the major aims of US security policy, the third part of the guidance explains the concrete steps that will be taken ‘Toward the Joint Force of 2020’ (DoD, 2012: 6). In this section, the tune changes and, in the process, seems to breach and transcend sovereign security logics. As I will argue, this represents a move toward governmental rationalities and corresponding policy concepts. I will therefore concentrate now on demonstrating and discussing the occurrence and implications of this shift.

Governmental shift

Presenting a systematic list of eight concrete policy imperatives, the guidance shifts away from the sovereign security approach of the preceding sections. However, the policy requirements put forward in this section of the document not only leave behind a traditional and narrow understanding of military security, in particular they also open up the horizon of governmentalized security logics. In order to discuss this move, we should first briefly name the eight policy imperatives presented in this third section of the document. This is also necessary because the conceptual shift from sovereign to governmental rationalities becomes readily apparent in the language used in this section of the document.

The guidance underlines that the ‘DoD will manage the force in ways that protect its ability to regenerate capabilities […] maintaining intellectual capital […] that could be called upon to expand key elements of the force’ (DoD, 2012: 6, italics original).

The document emphasizes that ‘“reversibility”—including the vectors on which we place our industrial base, our people, our active-reserve component balance […] is a key part of our decision calculus’ (DoD, 2012: 7, italics original).

The necessity of ‘readiness’ is stressed, while ‘the health and quality of the All-Volunteer Force’ is defined as being crucial (DoD, 2012: 7, italics original).

In order to ‘reduce the “cost of doing business”’, the objective of ‘reducing the rate of growth of manpower costs, finding further efficiencies in overhead and headquarters, business practices, and other support activities before taking further risk’ is emphasized (DoD, 2012: 7).

Combined with this target, the guidance mentions that ‘limited resources may be better tuned to their requirements. This will include a renewed emphasis on the need for a globally networked approach to deterrence and warfare’ (DoD, 2012: 7).

The DoD will ‘examine the mix of Active Component (AC) and Reserve Component (RC) elements best suited to the strategy’ and determine ‘an appropriate AC/RC mix and level of RC readiness’ (2012: 7).

The guidance stresses the need to attain ‘key advancements in networked warfare’ which ‘will shape a number of Departmental disciplines’ (DoD, 2012: 7–8).

Finally, the DoD intends to, ‘make every effort to maintain an adequate industrial base and our investment in science and technology. […] To that end, the Department will both encourage a culture of change and be prudent with its ‘seed corn’, balancing reductions necessitated by resource pressures with the imperative to sustain key streams of innovation that may provide significant long-term payoffs’ (DoD, 2012: 8).

This short summarized list suffices to make it obvious that the guidance digresses here from the very narrow, sovereign understanding of national security dominant in its previous two sections. Not only does this imply a transgression of the constriction of sovereign security logics, but also – more significantly – the principal characteristic traits of the security dispositif of governmentality come to the fore. Essentially, I believe that four key elements of governmental rationalities can be identified in the guidance’s proposed path ‘Towards the Joint Force’ (DoD, 2012: 6).

First, the ‘inclusion in circuits of neoliberal political economy’ (Aradau, 2010: 504) of the third section’s policy outlook needs to be mentioned. Since one declared rationale behind the new guidance is budgetary, it is not surprising that the economic theme is taken up, and plays an important role in the third section of the document. However, this does not take place in terms of fiscal arguments; it is not the language of budget cuts and savings that is particularly accentuated here. Rather, the necessity of budgetary savings is introduced in a marginal fashion, at best as an argumentative starting point, while the section deploys the broader logic of a governmental political economy of security, in which security is intrinsically tied to liberal economics. The economic theme enters not as an external restriction, but in the sense of what Foucault describes as a comprehensive form of knowledge, which both constitutes and is related to the security dispositif of governmentality (Foucault, 2004a: 162–163). Both the systematic primacy of liberal economic patterns and the merger of political economy and security rationalities become evident in each of the eight policy goals outlined. The security–economy fusion characteristic of the politics of governmentality is not so much reflected in the – very peripheral – announcement of possible budgetary cuts.¹² The governmental merger of security and economy comes to the fore instead in the repeated emphasis the guidance puts on ‘intellectual capital’, the ‘adequate industrial base and our investment’, ‘our people, our active-reserve component balance, […] our decision calculus’ and, finally, on the will to ‘be prudent with its “seed corn”, […] that may provide significant long-term payoffs’ (DoD, 2012: 6–8, italics original). The embedding of military security into the scope of governmental political economy underlines Bröckling’s statement that ‘[i]f life becomes an economic function, disinvestment amounts to death’ (Bröckling, 2011: 264). This embedding is, by the way, also reflected in the loose and vague management-speak in this section of the guidance. For instance, the repeatedly accentuated notion of a ‘Joint Force’ (DoD, 2012: 1, 4, 6–8), or the emphasis on ‘a globally networked approach to deterrence and warfare’ as well as on ‘networked warfare’ (DoD, 2012: 7), are – although these concepts and notions do not refer to previous security papers – neither conceptually explained nor even briefly defined.

Closely related to this first aspect, the guidance indicates, second, a biopolitical rationality of human capital and the capitalization of the human (Foucault, 2004a: 41, 114–120, 2004b: 314–323; see also Bröckling, 2011). One major focus, according to the guidance’s third section, is on the quality of the human workforce not only as ‘most important military advantage’ (DoD, 2012: 7), but also as a variable in the complex calculus of the force’s overall capital (DoD, 2012: 6–7). While at first glance the biopolitical note seems to be limited to the forces themselves, and fails to make explicit a biopolitical mission statement, the inclusion of ‘the health and quality of the All-Volunteer Force’ (DoD, 2012: 7, see also 6–7) into a broad economic rationality hints at (a) the focus on human material and its ‘quality’ (also in individual terms), (b) the liberal narrative of voluntariness and (c) the incentive and productive aim of power ‘to Make Life Live’ (Dillon and Reid, 2009) – which Foucault (e.g. 2004a: 111–113) identifies as being crucial for governmentality. In any event, biopolitics ‘is a form of power that disseminates through society as an effective tool in power relations to normalize social acts and the conduct of populations’ (de Larrinaga and Doucet, 2008: 520). Thus, as a conceptual framework and methodology for politics, biopolitical rationalities are not tied per se to any particular group, empirical issue or object area, but rather unfold in diverse settings and with regard to different object areas (Dillon, 2007, 2010; Kienscherf, 2011; Kiersey, 2010; see also Albert and Buzan, 2011). Apart from the conceptual inclusiveness of biopolitical security aims and logics, there is also empirical indication of a broader biopolitical scope as well as a concrete political outcome of such scope in this section of the guidance. As we have seen earlier, the counter-insurgency doctrine corresponds to biopolitical-governmental logics of security (Kienscherf, 2011; Gilmore, 2011). According to the governmental shift in its third section, the guidance now stresses the need and readiness for counter-insurgency missions (DoD, 2012: 8), while in the two previous sections such missions were downgraded in favor of a sovereign inter-state security approach.

The fact that the third part of the guidance is related to a broader biopolitical economy of security, and that in particular ‘intellectual capital’ (2012: 6, italics original) is presented as a core variable in the DoD’s security calculation, reflects, third, the intrinsic interrelation – or even merger – between power and knowledge, a key element of governmental power. This ‘famous Fouca[u]ldian nexus between knowledge and power’ (Wasinski, 2011: 58; see also Valverde and Mopas, 2004: 237) originates in his earlier, one could say pre-governmental, work (cf. e.g. Foucault, 1975, 1978), but retains its crucial role in the later concept of governmentality (2004a: 111, 116, 120, 162–163, 2004b). Also, the imperative of ‘readiness’ (DoD, 2012: 7, italics original) stressed in the guidance has to be considered as both an outcome of the knowledge–power fusion and a particular trait of governmental security rationalities. Lentzos and Rose have demonstrated that governmental security puts forward the necessity of permanent ‘Preparedness’ (Lentzos and Rose, 2008: 83, italics original), which is related to the continuous assessment and calculation of risk characteristic of governmental politics (Foucault, 2004b: 101; Castel, 1991; Dean, 1999: 177; Aradau and van Munster, 2007: 91, 102–106). While leaving open considerations of what the ‘acceptable risk’ (DoD, 2012: 8) is, the emphasis on risks – their detection, assessment and calculation in the third section of the guidance – corresponds to Aradau and van Munster’s statement that ‘precautionary risk relies on decision as a technology for governing uncertainty’ (Aradau and van Munster, 2007: 107). In addition, the claim ‘to maintain an adequate industrial base and our investment in science and technology’ and therefore to ‘sustain key streams of innovation’ (DoD, 2012: 8, see also p. 7) demonstrates the close interrelation between power and knowledge in the guidance.

This part of the guidance implies, fourth and finally, an empirical broadening of the notion of security in terms of both reference point (from state to individual) and subject matters, as well as topics of security (Daase, 2010: 10). However, the security understanding in this section is not broadened in the sense that new policy fields and problem areas are explicitly named and included in the list of security aims. It is, rather, the ‘loud silence’ on any actual actor, problem or region in this section as well as its governmental shape that implies the expansion of security beyond the narrow and sovereign understanding in the first two sections. The governmental dispositif of security is not restricted to particular empirical objects, but consists of an extensive rationality and political methodology providing ‘technologies for ordering and managing social problems’ (C.A.S.E. Collective, 2006: 457). It is, therefore, precisely the lack of an empirical security object or region, together with the avoidance to determine a reference point for security (state, society, individual), which indicates that the sovereign security understanding of the first two sections is conceptually and empirically transcended. Governmental security cannot be limited to pre-defined security objects since the dispositif of security is an encompassing rationality that allows shaping and constituting the objects as well as the management patterns of security itself. Hence, the concurrence of (a) the characteristic traits of governmentality with (b) those blatant blank spaces in the third section, which are apparent and obvious because they seem to thwart the narrow and determined foci in the first two sections, works as a conceptual and empirical widener of security toward governmental rationalities and politics.

Coincidence and parallelism: The relation of security rationalities in the guidance

While a predominance of a sovereign security understanding and state-centric military perspective of security policy was to be expected in a military strategy of the DoD, both the immediacy and intensity of the governmental shift is quite surprising. This shift is even more remarkable in that the first two sections of the guidance not only follow a sovereign national security approach, but also adhere to it to the extent of demoting formerly important strategic imperatives of the last decade’s US security policy in favor of an almost deterrence-like conception of military policy. In return, the governmental part of the guidance itself barely resumes or explicitly refers to previously outlined challenges (DoD, 2012: 1–3) and primary missions (DoD, 2012: 4–6).

From a governmental perspective, it would have been not unexpected per se to detect the reliance of liberal governmental security on sovereign military technologies (Foucault, 1975, 1978, 2001a, 2001b; Dillon, 2004, 2007; Dillon and Reid, 2009; Kiersey, 2010). However, what we find here is not a governmental approach using military violence for biopolitical aims. What we see instead in the guidance’s structure is – vice versa and indeed surprising – a sovereign state- and military-centric understanding of security, which then refers and resorts to governmental logics. In fact, the shift in the guidance toward governmentality is not only remarkable, but also seems to produce a conceptual tension between the first two and the last sections. This is because, from a theoretical perspective, the rationalities of governmentality – although they might make (instrumental) use of particular sovereign instruments and means – go well beyond and undermine most axioms of sovereign security government. It is in particular this theoretical tension which makes the guidance interesting from a governmental perspective and for a governmentality-oriented reading.

However, the appearance of governmental logics in the guidance’s third section does not provide any indication of a contradictory political or strategic relation between the sovereign security scope and the intended governmental measures. In fact, the recourse to governmental rationalities does not avert or impede pursuance of any of the defined political priorities given in the guidance’s first two sections. Even the absence of sovereignty-centered national security imperatives and rhetoric in the third section does not indicate a withdrawal from the aims and targets in the preceding sections. To give an illustrative example, the complete lack of ‘traditional geostrategic goals associated with sovereignty’ (Dillon, 2004: 76) in the third section, so important in the previous sections, is not merely a precondition for the global scope of a governmental security approach; at the same time, such a global governmental scope by no means contradicts applying a specific geographical focus. Particular regional concentrations (in the case of the guidance: on Asia and the Middle East) are still possible – but as concrete applications of broader governmental scopes. Hence the declared focus on Asia and the Middle East does not contradict the application of governmental security logics; but, rather, the applied concept of geopolitics might prove to be dependent upon governmental imperatives (see also Dillon, 2004: 76), leading to a governmental shaping and pervasion of particular regional orientations.

In addition to the fact that the governmental shift does not appear to undermine or withdraw the previously described aims, it has to be emphasized that the guidance is neither a theoretical paper nor a tentative first draft, and we should not fail to take it very seriously. In fact the guidance demonstrates that the DoD and the policy-makers who authored the document do not recognize a political incompatibility between a sovereign security approach and the governmentalization of military policies. On the contrary, they appear to identify governmental rationalities as providing appropriate answers to the described traditional and sovereign security challenges and interests.

The interrelation between government and governmental logics seems rather to reveal both a parallel and a dialectical structure in the guidance. The prevailing sovereign logics of great power politics in the first two sections are complemented by rationalities of governmental management in the document’s third section in a way that does not merge, but parallelizes them. The parallel structure is produced by the separation between a traditional security agenda with a narrow, sovereignty-, state- and military-based concept of security in the first and second sections, and the quite sudden appearance of governmental logics and prospects in the third and final section. This parallel structure implies a dialectical relation, understood in a Gadamerian sense of a two-step-dialectics of question and answer (Gadamer, 1990: 367–381), because the third section does not undermine or revoke the previous aims and missions, but concretizes the preceding general strategic and programmatic statements. The function of the third section is essentially to describe the policies and specific paths required with regard to the previous problem and strategic assessment. By outlining the policies, techniques and measures that are regarded as necessary to fulfill the defined aims, the third section introduces rationalities of governmentality by giving governmental answers to questions posed by a very traditional, sovereign security agenda – without rejecting, withdrawing or contradicting the aims and scopes of the proclaimed agenda. Hence the guidance does not pit great power politics against governmentality, but, rather, insists on both conceptual logics and places them in a relation of reciprocity.

At the same time, the guidance suggests that liberal and sovereign security understandings might also simultaneously coincide and work in parallel and in a dialectical relation, and thus are not necessarily mutually implicated or merged. They might correlate in different forms and – as Collier (2009: 100) concludes with regard to the heterogeneity of configurations of power – ‘[w]e can trace certain techniques and technical mechanisms from one context to the other. Indeed, such tracing is an essential contribution to rendering these new topologies of power intelligible’. The guidance demonstrates that, beside the conceptual merger of governmental and sovereign security, and in addition to a one-directional instrumental relation between governmental and sovereign logics (in which liberal governmentality makes instrumental use of sovereign means), there might also be a parallel coincidence of these two security rationalities in which a very traditional, sovereign security concept reaches out for governmental techniques and in which both ‘are redeployed […] to strengthen the state’ (Collier, 2009: 99).

In the architecture of the guidance, on the one hand sovereign and governmental logics are widely separated and run in parallel; on the other hand, the governmental theme is presented as a solution to sovereign challenges. The prevailing language and imperatives of military strength and great power politics of the first two sections is complemented by the much smoother logics of governmental management in the policy-concretization of the third section. In this respect, the guidance seems to be characterized by a work-sharing architecture, in which the aims and targets of military policy are described and, in particular, justified in sovereign terms of great power politics, while its implementation follows mainly governmental rationalities. At the same time, the parallelism of sovereign and governmental logics can be considered to set the endpoints of a security policy continuum, for which the ‘mixing ratio’ between (somewhat) sovereign government approaches and (somewhat) governmental technologies is continuously adjustable – and could provide a basis for very different governance-modes and policies (see Sack, 2014 and Vasilache, 2009 on the relation between governance and governmentality). Since neither the concrete mode nor the intensity of the interconnection between sovereign and governmental security rationalities are specified, the guidance leaves wide room for maneuver for US military policies and politics. This applies even further because the governmental security dispositif is not bound to the narrow rules and institutions of sovereign national security policy, but comes into effect whenever there is deviation from the everyday course of events (Demirović, 2008: 233) and implies that ‘la sécurité est au-dessus des lois’ [‘security is above the law’] (Foucault, 2001a: 366, see also 2001b). Governmental intervention in the guidance can therefore also be considered as a conceptual and political widener of the security state (for this notion see Demirović, 2008: 233; Grondin, 2010: 79) or rather the ‘security society’ (Foucault, 2001b: 386, present author’s translation).

Again, this entails neither a fusion of sovereign and governmental logics in the guidance nor a dichotomist opposition, but rather a reciprocal interrelation between sovereign aspirations and governmental security logics. The quite strict sectional separation of a sovereign security approach and governmental security patterns in the guidance by no means undermines their interrelatedness. It shows instead both the ongoing political and discursive strength of the sovereign ‘military grand narrative’ (Wasinski, 2011: 57). Thus, the guidance document reflects the persistence of sovereign security aims, logics and narratives in their very traditional form as well as their policy-concretization through an embeddedness in the greater realm of governmentality. In turn, the governmental security approach and its salience in the guidance is framed in a military context of violent and repressive techniques of power (Demirović, 2008: 238–239) and proves that the ‘liberal way of rule is contoured also by the liberal way of war’ (Dillon and Reid, 2009: 35). So, the conjunction of sovereign and governmental security patterns in the guidance does not (re-)present a ‘disruption of the global regime associated with neo-liberal governmentality’ in favor of ‘direct forms of power’ (Lipschutz and Rowe, 2005: 15). Such a perspective would, however, act on the assumption of a categorical incompatibility between governmental and violent forms of power instead of reflecting military violence as being a possible technique within governmental policies.¹³ Rather, the guidance can be considered as an exposed example of the ‘emerging assemblages between governmental rationalities and sovereign power’ (de Larrinaga and Doucet, 2010: 108). The guidance presents a conceptual assemblage, in which sovereign great power politics is neither shaped in contradiction to nor merged with broader governmental security logics, but instead provides a political co-occurrence of sovereign military policy and a wider governmental approach – thus, a governmentally-inclined great power politics, or what one could call great power governmentality.

In sum, such a framework seems to be suited to the governmental concretization and management of major strategic goals as well as the situational adjustment of military security politics. In turn, governmental security dispositifs are linked to very traditional, sovereign military power politics, favoring violence-prone governmentality (Dean, 2007: 191; Opitz, 2011) over governmental policies that are not (Lipschutz and Rowe, 2005: 15), or are to a lesser extent pre-shaped according to military imperatives. In any event, the sovereign–governmental assemblage that can be detected in the guidance is likely to leave US military politics broad political and strategic room for maneuver.

Conclusion

This article shows that the new strategic guidance of the US DoD published in January 2012 is characterized by the persistence of a sovereign state- and military-focused understanding of national security in its first two sections. It emphasizes a geopolitical shift toward Asia and the Middle East in very traditional, sovereign terms, underlines the necessity of containment policies toward North Korea, and also toward China, and highlights the need to tackle the proliferation of WMD. In addition, counter-terrorist activities, ‘Stabilizing Presence’ missions as well as ‘Stability and Counterinsurgency Operations’ (DoD, 2012: 5–6) are both downgraded and treated almost exclusively in sovereign state- and military-centric terms. Finally, there are hardly any indications regarding the inclusion of broader and/or (supposedly) soft security issues into the realm of US security policy that could pave the way for governmental rationalities.

However, the third and final section of the guidance is shown to make a shift not only toward a conceptually and empirically broader understanding of security, but also, more precisely, toward governmental security rationalities. The guidance is shown to expose the key elements of governmental rationalities. First, the embeddedness of security politics in a broader logic of a governmental political economy of security came to the fore. Second, the biopolitical focus of the governmental security dispositif as well as, third, the characteristic interrelation between power and knowledge could be identified. Fourth, it was possible to recognize the conceptual as well as empirical widening of the notion of security in terms of governmental security rationalities.

Given the format of the guidance document as a military strategy of and for the DoD, the predominance of a sovereign perspective and state-centric military understanding of security policy would not be surprising per se. The same would hold true if we had a governmental focus instrumentally recurring to sovereign means – in particular because US security policy after the end of bloc confrontation, and especially since 9/11, has indeed incorporated different traits of governmentality, and ‘global mechanisms of biopower came to be deployed by the US’ (Grondin, 2010: 92).¹⁴ Rather, the guidance document is remarkable in particular because of the distinctiveness, immediacy and clarity with which sovereign and governmental security logics are presented. The extent of fidelity to a sovereign security conception – that is, the intensity of the persistence of very traditional security logics – in the first two sections and the clarity and distinctiveness of the governmental focus in the third section, as well as the immediacy of the governmental turn, are noteworthy. Although the demonstrated shift toward governmental rationalities suggests at first glance a conflicting systematic tension within the guidance, the functions of the guidance’s sections reveal the inappropriateness of such a cursory interpretation. In fact, the interrelation between sovereign and governmental logics displays both a parallel and a functional–dialectic structure in the guidance, with the third section essentially describing the policies that are defined as required by the assessment in the previous sections. Thus, the governmental shift outlines the policies, techniques and measures necessary to fulfill the defined aims and thereby provides governmental answers to questions posed by a sovereign security agenda. The prevailing language and imperatives of military strength and great power politics in the first two parts are complemented by the much smoother and more sophisticated rationalities of governmental management in the policy-concretization of the third section. At the same time, the separation of sovereign and governmental logics defines the endpoints of a sovereign-governmental continuum of security policy, in which the interconnectedness, parallelism or merger between sovereign government approaches and governmental technologies is continuously adjustable.

This can be considered to open up a wide strategic and empirical horizon for security policy and to establish broad room for maneuver for US military security actors. It can be concluded that the sovereign and the governmental sections and logics in the guidance go well together in political and strategic terms. In addition, their co-occurrence and interconnectedness are functionally consistent precisely because of their parallel, that is, well-separated, and at the same time dialectical relation. Thus the political and strategic consequences of this conceptual encounter between sovereign national security rationalities and governmental logics are significant. In this sense, the guidance demonstrates the will of the US DoD to pursue not only ‘national security governmentality’ (Grondin, 2010: 81), but also a governmentally-inclined great power politics, or what one could call great power governmentality. Rather than representing a document that justifies budgetary cuts in the DoD, this guidance actually stakes new and broader claims of US military power projection.

Footnotes

Funding

This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial or not-for-profit sectors.

Notes

Andreas Vasilache is Professor of European Studies at Bielefeld University, director of the Centre for German and European Studies (CGES/ZDES) at Bielefeld University and St Petersburg State University, and visiting professor at University of Malaya (UM) in Kuala Lumpur. Recent publications include a special issue of Migration Letters on ‘Mobile Inequalities in a Mobile Europe’ (co-edited with Anna Amelina). He would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their comments on this article.

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