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ABSTRACT
International actors routinely demonstrate their military-technological capabilities through spectacular visual performances such as weapons tests, exercises and exhibitions. These public spectacles are internationally observed through the widespread circulation of images that visually represent the practice of demonstration in myriad ways. In this article, I conduct a case study of Russian demonstrations of uncrewed military vehicles during the Zapad 2021 military exercise, to illustrate that capability demonstrations do not merely have rational and linear effects on the strategic calculus of actors, but rather that they are a coherent set of international visual practices shaping how onlookers perceive war, violence and the tools of military force. I argue that the visual patterns and themes observable in the images of military demonstrations establish commonsensical perceptions of the necessity of using (algorithmically mediated) military force in the conduct of international politics, and the normality of employing ever-evolving, technologically advanced instruments of violence. Moreover, I contend that these perceptions are reinforced by the contexts in which the practices of production, circulation and consumption of the images take place. As such, this article develops a theoretical framework that allows for the systematic study of military capability demonstrations as an important visual site of international politics.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank Tom Sauer, Jorg Kustermans, Marijn Hoijtink and all other members of the International Politics research group at the University of Antwerp for their invaluable comments and suggestions on earlier drafts of this article. I am also indebted to all participants of the 2023 EISA ECR workshop for their generous feedback. A final word of thanks goes to the two anonymous reviewers and the editors of Critical Studies on Security for their kind, constructive, and very helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. On the Russian terminology concerning robotics & artificial intelligence, see Kozyulin (Citation2019).
2. In this article, I opt for the term ‘uncrewed military vehicles’ instead of, for example, military drones or armed drones. While in principle the same thing, the term ‘drone’ is often exclusively linked to what is called ‘unmanned aerial vehicles’ or UAVs. As the focus of this article is broader than merely aerial vehicles, I rely on the wider terminology of ‘uncrewed military vehicles’.
3. I define militarism in this paper as the unproblematic conviction that militaries and military violence are a necessity within international relations, whereas militarisation indicates the process of normalisation of military force and violent instruments through social, cultural, political, and economic material and ideational practices (see Jude Citation2022, 16; Rech et al. Citation2015, 48, 51). These two notions ‘call attention to the salience of ideological constructs and material practices, respectively, which permeate everyday life’ (Tyner and Cromley Citation2019, 30).
4. It might seem illogical that international actors also demonstrate weaknesses of their military power. Nonetheless, this is a common phenomenon that is largely involuntary, for example when a weapons test fails or when a showcase during a military exhibition falls short of the expectations.
5. Of course, making visible certain practices also means that other practices are not (made) visible, which potentially blind us for other(s’) constructed realities (see Von Foerster Citation2003, 211–227).
6. Throughout the last century, secrecy has become a much more important aspect of military development. That does, however, not mean that public demonstrations are moved to the background, as Carson and Yarhi-Milo (Citation2017) show in their paper on covert signalling. For more on the interplay between secrecy and the public demonstrations of weaponry, see also Masco (Citation2002) and Green and Long (Citation2019).
7. These audiences can include, but are certainly not limited to, domestic and international civilians; Russian military personnel; military allies of the Russian Armed Forces; or NATO and Ukrainian military personnel and political leaders.
8. Belarus, India, Pakistan, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Armenia, and Sri Lanka (Ministry of Defence Russia Citation2021d).
9. China, Myanmar, Vietnam (Ministry of Defence Russia Citation2021d).
10. I generously thank one of the anonymous reviewers for pointing me in the direction of this highly relevant and important study.
11. Such as the Dutch Army’s RAS unit, which experiments with ‘drones, (semi-)autonomous systems, and AI’ (Van der Maarel et al. Citation2023, 8).
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Notes on contributors
Robin Vanderborght
Robin Vanderborght is a doctoral researcher at the University of Antwerp, Belgium. His PhD research focuses on the concept of strategic stability and how it is made meaningful through different international practices. His research domains and interests are science & technology studies, critical security studies, international practice theory, visuality and pop culture in IR.