James Der Derian’s Virtuous War investigates the dual – and in contemporary times, linked – meanings of “virtuous” war. Etymologically and historically, the words “virtual” and “virtuous” have had almost the same meaning – that of “power inherent in the supernatural, of a divine being endowed with natural virtue” (Der Derian xv). Yet in modern parlance, “virtual” has become a more technological term, referring to a representational digitized reality, while “virtuous” has morphed into the expression of virtue, or moral qualities. However, in contemporary innovations of military technology – namely, the integration of computerized networks and digital representation into every level of the United States armed forces – and transformations of U.S. foreign policy – which, with the fall of the Soviet Union, is now dedicated to spreading free markets and democracy while minimizing civilian casualties – Der Derian sees the beginning of a reunion of the meanings of “virtual” and “virtuous,” in what he calls “virtuous war.” Wars of the 21st century, and Der Derian includes the 1991 Gulf War as the first example, will be fought both “virtually” and, at least in American eyes, “virtuously.” In fact, the twin virtual/virtuous aspects of 21st century war enable and reinforce one another. Virtuality makes political violence seem less immoral – CNN presents “clean” wars without civilian casualties, American deaths, or carnage, while showing off the ability of U.S. military technology to pinpoint and kill the “bad guys” without any collateral damage. At the same time, virtuous warriors feel the need to use that technology to spread rationality, democracy, free markets, and modernity (all the necessary ingredients for the development of virtuality in the first place) around the world.

Virtuous war adds important, and potentially dangerous, new poles to Eisenhower’s famous “military industrial complex” – how will the “military-industrial-media-entertainment network” (MIME-NET) influence American foreign policy, military affairs, and the general public? Chapters one through four of Virtuous War explore the basis for what Der Derian hopes will become, by the end of the book, the beginnings of a theory on how both kinds of “virtuality” in war will intersect, contradict, compliment, and negate each other. Will innovations in technology disperse or further complicate the “fog of war?” Can America spread democracy and capitalism without the horrors of war we’ve come to expect? Does a virtualized army have the capacity to implement a virtuous foreign policy? Can war ever truly be virtual, in either sense of the word?

To grateful students the world over, Der Derian’s work takes the form not of another theoretical tome on technology, war, and media, but instead that of a travelogue. He chronicles his journeys to places representing various aspects of MIME-NET and to locations where the future of “virtuous war” is being explored and strategized – chapters one through four feature a war game at Fort Irwin in the Mojave Desert, Bodleian Library in Oxford, the Pentagon, a peace game at the Hohenfels Combat and Maneuver Training Center in Germany, various conferences in London, Oslo, and Aberystwyth, Paris to interview Paul Virilio, and, finally, the “Simulation Triangle” formed by the Interservice/Industry Training Systems and Education Conference, the STRICOM (Simulation, Training, and Instrumentation Command) military base, and Disney World (which is surprisingly hard to infiltrate). Naturally, Der Derian is aware that he stands on the shoulders of French, German, and Argentine giants, and he guides his journey and theoretical development with quotations and theories from works by Jean Baudrillard, Paul Virilio, Friedrich Nietzsche, Walter Benjamin, and Jorge Luis Borges.

So what is Der Derian’s theory for virtuous war? Well, I can’t really say, since this literature review assignment is only for the first four chapters of the book. Nevertheless, chapters one through four establish important foundational theoretical concepts – the “revolution in military affairs,” the power of hyperreal war game simulations, the cyberdeterrent, and MIME-NET – that play fundamental roles in the theory Der Derian develops later on. The “revolution in military affairs,” what military eggheads call the “RMA,” is, potentially, the third major military technology revolution of the 20th/21st century. The first revolution came during the First World War, in which, for the first time in European history, political violence was industrialized on a mass scale. The military’s industrial revolution was followed, after the Second World War, by a second RMA – the integration of nuclear arsenals into the armed forces of NATO and the Soviet Union. Presumably, just as the Industrial Revolution triggered an industrialization of war, and the harnessing of nuclear power lead to another leap in military technology, so too should our brave new “Information Age” have a corresponding RMA. This third RMA, which the United States is currently experiencing, involves the integration of digital technologies into the armed forces, the wide-scale use of satellites, the complete networking of the armed forces (from generals to aircraft carriers all the way down to individual soldiers), the manipulation of world-wide media outlets, and the reliance on simulated war games for training and strategic decisions.

However, Der Derian is not totally convinced that this new RMA will be able to truly cure the inherently unpredictable nature of war, and fears that the over-reliance on simulated war games may dull American troops to the chaos, dangers, and horrors of “real” war. Additionally, he sees the potential for hyperreal simulated war games to actually manifest themselves in reality, “Has the paradox of simulation moved from the surreal to the hyperreal? Was the Gulf War the product of a U.S. war game designed to fight a war game bought by Iraq from a U.S. company? To be sure, the given reasons of protecting the oil fields and deterring aggression were significant factors for rallying the coalition forces. But it is possible that new – let us say digitally improved – simulations can precede and engender the reality of war that they were intended to model and prepare for?” (15-16). Finally, just as the physical networks of the interstate highway and the digital network of the internet increased the opportunities and the potential devastation of car crashes and terrorist attacks, a completely networked, integrated, digitized army may become, in fact, even more vulnerable to accidental and intentional injury.

Another possible outcome of our third RMA is the emergence of a new kind of “cyberdeterrent” to replace the Cold War’s out of fashion deterrent of “mutually assured destruction” (so ‘80s). For example, by virtually flexing its techno-military might on CNN during the First Gulf War, the U.S.A. could potentially deter would-be rouge states from misbehaving, as it demonstrated the incredible power of a digitized, networked army. Of course, the cyberdeterrent doesn’t necessarily lead to stability. The awesome power of the revolutionized U.S. army may just inspire potential rouges to more actively pursue nuclear weapons, which still pose a mighty strong deterrent against any kind of invasion – even one by an army finished its third RMA.

MIME-NET is both an outgrowth of the third RMA and also an important factor in its development. For perhaps the first time in American military history, technological innovations are migrating from the commercial sector to the military sector, rather than the other way around. At the same time, U.S. military demand for advanced simulation technology and improved digitalization also stimulates the media and entertainment industries to invest and explore areas with military application more heavily. Wars are produced on T.V. like movies, entertainment executives are hired to speculate on potential future terrorist attacks, videogame technology is adapted for military training – the process is cyclical and self-reinforcing.

Of course, the elephant in the room through all this is September 11th, the Second Gulf War, and the resulting “Civil-Sectarian-Ethnic-Religious-International-War-Conflict-Insurgency-etc.” in Iraq. Virtuous War was published in June 2001, just three months before 9/11 and its foreign policy aftermath. At the very least, this makes for great nostalgia, especially bits of pre-9/11, pre-Iraq mess, pre-IED tidbits, like a description of “the new, more isolationist President Bush,” (76), military strategists focusing primarily on “threats that might emerge from Asia” (29), and the otherwise scarily prescient Paul Virilio remarking, “A civil war wasn’t possible in the desert of Iraq” (66).
Naturally, there are more serious implications for Der Derian’s investigation of “virtuous war” in the wake of America’s, er, quagmire in Iraq. After all, what do networks, simulations, hard/soft/wetware, 21st century warfighters, and the “Revolution in Military Affairs” matter if, as Bill Maher rather politically incorrectly put it, we’re “losing a war to Arab teenagers?” To his credit, Der Derian is impressively; perhaps even prophetically, skeptical of the Army’s cyberpunk vision of a completely wired, networked, virtualized, and thus unstoppable war-machine. Nevertheless, what happens, for example, to Der Derian’s theory of a 21st century “cyber-deterrent” when Iraq has shown the world that the American goliath can be, if not defeated, in any case held off long enough with weapons and bombs made from ingredients available at the local hardware store?

Perhaps “virtuous war” is just another facet of what Der Derian termed (in IR135 class last year) the new, heteropolar nature of international affairs. Sure, virtuous war operates and has a significant impact, but it is not the only discourse – technological, political, or moral – shaping the world today. Virtuous war runs up against religious war, territorial quarrels, ethnic/tribal conflicts, terrorism, narcotics trafficking, and more in constantly changing ways. Virtuous war may just become an expression of American technological prowess and ideological rigidity, rather than the unstoppable phenomenon the military envisions. A uniquely American strategy and perspective, rather than the next era of war.