Proto-Algorithmic War: How the Iraq War became a laboratory for algorithmic logics (Social and Cultural Studies of Robots and AI) - Softcover

Hristova, Stefka

Softcover

ISBN 10: 3031042212 ISBN 13: 9783031042218

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan, 2023

Synopsis

During the Iraq War, American soldiers were sent to both fight an enemy and to recover a “failed state” in pixelated camouflage uniforms, accompanied by robots, and armed with satellite maps and biometric hand-held scanners. The Iraq War, however, was no digital game: massive-scale physical death and destruction counter the vision of a clean replayable war. The military policy of the United States, and not the actual experience of war, has been rooted in the logic of digital, and nascent algorithmic technology. This logic attempted to reduce culture, society, as well as the physical body and environment into visual data that lacks cultural and historical context. 

This book details the emergence of a nascent algorithmic war culture in the context of the Iraq War (2003-2010) in relation to the data-driven early 20^th century British Mandate for Iraq. Through a series of five inquiries into the ways in which the Iraq War attempted to and often failed tosee population and territory as digital and further proto-algorithmic entities, it offers an insight into the digitization and further unmanned automaton of war. It does so through a comparative historical framework reaching back to the quantification techniques harnessed during the British Mandate for Iraq (1918-1932) in order to explicate the parallels and complicated the diversions between the numerical logics that have driven both military state-building enterprises.

About this title

About the Author

Stefka Hristova’s research examines algorithmic and digital media cultures. She studies the intersection of technology and culture in relation the context of photography, surveillance, and social movements.

From the Back Cover

During the Iraq War, American soldiers were sent to both fight an enemy and to recover a “failed state” in pixelated camouflage uniforms, accompanied by robots, and armed with satellite maps and biometric hand-held scanners. The Iraq War, however, was no digital game: massive-scale physical death and destruction counter the vision of a clean replayable war. The military policy of the United States, and not the actual experience of war, has been rooted in the logic of digital, and nascent algorithmic technology. This logic attempted to reduce culture, society, as well as the physical body and environment into visual data that lacks cultural and historical context. 

This book details the emergence of a nascent algorithmic war culture in the context of the Iraq War (2003-2010) in relation to the data-driven early 20^th century British Mandate for Iraq. Through a series of five inquiries into the ways in which the Iraq War attempted to and often failed to see population and territory as digital and further proto-algorithmic entities, it offers an insight into the digitization and further unmanned automaton of war. It does so through a comparative historical framework reaching back to the quantification techniques harnessed during the British Mandate for Iraq (1918-1932) in order to explicate the parallels and complicated the diversions between the numerical logics that have driven both military state-building enterprises.

Stefka Hristova’s research examines algorithmic and digital media cultures. She studies the intersection of technology and culture in relation the context of photography, surveillance, and social movements.

Edition details

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Publication date: 2023
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 3031042212
• ISBN 13: 9783031042218
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 196