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ABSTRACT
Infantry rifles are responsible for the majority of war-related deaths. This paper describes how and why they became ‘standard-issue’ military equipment. Examining testing reports, field surgery observations and bullet specifications, I develop a theory of instrumentality through which a specific way of killing in warfare becomes legitimate and manifest in infantry rifles. Rather than pregiven objects that are made acceptable through an evaluation of their uses and consequences, I show that weapons become possible through an ontology that calibrates how killing in war occurs, technologically and ethically. More generally, this paper expands the study of weaponry and war by uncovering the material and moral specifications that not only design but also crucially define what counts as a weapon. Clearly stated are when and against whom the line between life and death can be drawn. This paper, by contrast, uncovers the conditions that generate how and with what that line can be legitimately crossed.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Maja Zehfuss, Antoine Bousquet, Jairus Grove and Katharine Kindervater for taking the time to read multiple drafts of this paper and providing generous and valuable feedback. I am also grateful to two anonymous reviewers, whose constructive commentary has strengthened this paper’s overall contributions. Christopher Leite and Adam Kochanski have been invaluable for their research assistance, without which this paper would not exist. Any remaining errors are my own.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. Concern here is not always limited to infantry rifles, but the general class of small arms, of which rifles are a part. To the extent however that rifles are perhaps the most numerous small arms when it comes to international warfare, they are assumed to be the most violent in this category of weaponry. See also ‘Small Arms: The Real Weapons of Mass Destruction’ (https://www.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/204/42564.html)
2. First formally delineated in the St. Petersburg Declaration. Although focussed on projectiles of a specific weight, the principles laid down in the preface have been adopted and applied more generally in the 1899 and 1907 Hague Conventions respecting the Laws and Customs of War on Land, which, along with the Geneva Conventions and the United Nations’ Convention on the Use of Certain Convention Weapons, are the principle frameworks for contemporary discussions of war and weaponry.
3. This is not meant to suggest that some suffering is necessary. During the 1974 Conference of Government Experts on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons, one participant clarified that ‘[t]he distinction between unnecessary and other suffering was not meant to condone the infliction of suffering of any kind, but merely was aimed at precluding certain forms or degrees of suffering in a situation (armed conflict) where the infliction of suffering could never be wholly avoided’ (ICRC Citation1975, 3).
4. The recitation of the ‘rifleman’s creed’, more formally known as ‘My Rifle and the Creed of the Unites States Marine’, which is included as part of basic training for the US Marines, is exemplary in this regard. Amongst its most notable sections are the following:
My rifle is my best friend. It is my life. I must master it as I must master my life.
Without me, my rifle is useless. Without my rifle, I am useless. I must fire my rifle true. I must shoot straighter than my enemy who is trying to kill me. I must shoot him before he shoots me.
My rifle is human, even as I, because it is my life. Thus, I will learn it as a brother. I will learn its weaknesses, its strength, its parts, its accessories, its sights and its barrel. I will keep my rifle clean and ready, even as I am clean and ready. We will become part of each other. (Accessed: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rifleman’s_Creed)
5. Although Captain Henri-Gustave Delvigne in 1842 is credited with the initial conceptualisation of the conical bullet, Minié’s success was to correct design flaws and refine it in such a way that it would be introduced into general use (Jervis Citation1854; Granat Citation1993).
6. Again, consider the recitation of ‘My Rifle and the Creed of the United States Marines’. See note 4 above.
7. Given the dates of the war, British forces were first equipped by Minié rifles (likely the Pattern 1851 Rifled Musket) but by 1855 the new Pattern 1853 Rifled Musket had been introduced into use.
8. The declaration’s full title is a Declaration Renouncing the Use, in a Time of War, of Explosive Projectiles Under 400 Grammes Weight. St. Petersburg, 29 November/11 December 1868.
9. It is also worth noting that in some respects the attention to the Dum Dum was misplaced, as British forces had already found it to ‘shoot less well than the Mark II’, subsequently refining the design with the Mark IV, a hollow-point bullet with similar effect to expanding bullets. The concern amongst those more familiar was that proscription on the Dum Dum would have the effect of outlawing the Mark IV, being manufactured at the rate of ‘a million per week’ (Fleetwood Citation1899).
10. Although many devices fall under the category of small calibre projectiles, such as the rounds used by military rifles, sub-machine guns, light and medium machine guns, fixed vehicle guns and aircraft cannon], discussions at the meetings convened by the ICRC focussed almost exclusively on the 5.56 mm (0.22 in) ammunition of the automatic rifle (see International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Citation1975, 37).
11. Appendix E of the Final Act of the United Nations Conference on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Certain Conventional Weapons (1980). The Resolution on Small-Calibre Weapons Systems was adopted at the 1979 session of the conference.
12. It is important to note that although a number of groups have raised concerns about the rifle, in light of its role in causing a vast majority of war-related deaths, such efforts have largely been side-lined, often because a focus on ammunition, for instance, does not render the weapon itself reprehensible, but demands that it should be used more responsibly.
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Nisha Shah
Nisha Shah is an Assistant Professor in the School of Political Studies at the University of Ottawa. Her research explores the role of material objects and artefacts in world politics, which she examines by considering how and why things such as technological instruments and physical geographies become important political and ethical components in the historical evolution of frameworks of governance and war.