Silent war

Silent war reveals how silence functions as a crucial but often overlooked force in enabling and sustaining military violence. While war propaganda and discursive justifications have received significant attention, this book argues that military operations also depend on a hidden infrastructure of silence through omission, secrecy, and tacit consent. Focusing on drone warfare and colonial counterinsurgency, it explores how regimes of (not) listening shape what can and cannot be heard. Drawing on a multidisciplinary framework and extensive empirical research including analysis of Western parliamentary debates, UN documents, media coverage, and archival records Silent war traces the enduring role of silence in legitimising imperial violence. It reframes silence not as absence but as a constitutive force in global power relations, offering critical tools for interrogating dominant frameworks of military violence and opening space for listening otherwise.