Silent War - (Melland Schill Studies in International Law) by Elisabeth Schweiger (Hardcover)

About the Book

Silent war reveals how silence - through secrecy, omission and tacit consent - enables military violence. Focusing on drone warfare and colonial counterinsurgency, it uncovers the enduring architecture of silence at the heart of imperial power and offers critical tools for listening otherwise.

Book Synopsis

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.

From the Back Cover

Silent war examines the political work of silence in enabling and sustaining military violence. While scholarly and public attention has often focused on war propaganda and overt justifications for the use of force, this book contends that military operations equally depend on a parallel infrastructure of silences and omissions.

Using drone warfare as a central case study, the book explores the interlocking functions of silence, from state secrecy to public acquiescence, systems of neglect and the tacit power of unspoken assumptions. Developing a multidisciplinary conceptual framework, grounded in extensive empirical analysis, it critically investigates the hidden logics of silence in sustaining imperial violence. Through close analysis of Western parliamentary debates, media coverage, NGO reports and United Nations documents, the book traces how regimes of (not) listening shape what becomes audible - and what does not. It situates these dynamics within a longer historical continuum, showing how colonial counterinsurgency practices similarly depended on a hidden architecture of silence. Archival research into records of police bombing campaigns from the 1910s to the 1930s reveals patterns of silence that enabled, legitimised and sustained imperial violence.

Ultimately, Silent war argues that silence is not merely a void or absence, but a constitutive force within global power relations - an infrastructural element of violence that sustains hegemonic orders through practices of erasure, disavowal and unhearing. By placing silence at the centre of its analysis, the book challenges dominant frameworks of military violence, offering critical tools for interrogating imperial power structures and opening generative space for listening otherwise.

About the Author

Elisabeth Schweiger is a Lecturer in International Politics at the University of Stirling