Decentering death: The war on terror and the less‐than‐lethal paradigm

Abstract How does violent military coercion work alongside liberal democratic values in contemporary iterations of imperialism? This article shows how the less‐than‐lethal paradigm occludes death and perpetuates extreme forms of both deadly and not‐deadly military coercion in Iraq. Key to the 2003 invasion and subsequent counterinsurgency in Iraq, the less‐than‐lethal paradigm extends across military doctrine and US popular discourse. Based on the idea that killing is an undesirable way to dominate, the less‐than‐lethal paradigm is not necessarily benevolent or less deadly; instead, it is a legal, discursive, and logistical maneuver to minimize the political power of death and dying on the global stage. Decentering death, the less‐than‐lethal paradigm rebrands violence by reframing war as a precondition for peace, minimizing killing and death, disseminating nonkilling forms of coercion, and assigning responsibility to others for violence.