The World According to Military Targeting

A revealing account of the prevalence--and alarming ubiquity--of military targeting, and how it has become a self-propelling worldview driven by dominance, violence, and power. Offering a critical investigation of military targeting though the lenses of its historical formation, current operations, and future implications, the author presents an innovative probing into targeting's radical knowledge production, how it abstracts and brings into being new worlds, and the violence and destructive effects it generates. Through an interdisciplinary lens, the book draws attention to military doctrine and methodologies, statistical thought and practice, the mathematical and computational techniques of data production, processing and modeling, and the so-called machine-learning algorithms and AI of today. The resulting narrative provides novel insights into how imagining the world, producing the world, and operationalizing the world are always wrapped up in each other and profoundly embedded in sociotechnical systems.

About the author

Erik Reichborn-Kjennerud is Senior Research Fellow at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI). His interdisciplinary research interest lies at the intersection of war and political violence, history of science and technology, and critical theory.

Product details

• Authors: Erik Reichborn-Kjennerud
• Publisher: The MIT Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Release: 27.05.2025
• EAN: 9780262552349
• ISBN: 978-0-262-55234-9
• No. of pages: 288
• Dimensions: 152 mm x 229 mm x 17 mm
• Series: Prisms: Humanities and War
• Subjects: Social sciences, law, business > Social sciences (general); POLITICAL SCIENCE / Security (National & International), TECHNOLOGY & ENGINEERING / Military Science, POLITICAL SCIENCE / Public Policy / Military Policy, Warfare & defence, Warfare and defence, Central / national / federal government policies, Central government policies, Military engineering