The Taming of the insurgent: domesticity as operational combat tool in asymmetric warfare

Abstract

While it is true that modern architecture recycled Second World War tactics in building domestic scenarios as a postwar pacifying strategy, this research dig deeply into the relationship between Fourth Generation Warfare (4GW) strategies - or asymmetric wars strategies - and patterns of contemporary domesticity. This paper explores how the 4GW operative, exemplified in the hunt of Osama Bin Laden, recycled patterns of domesticity, built up over the premises of global capitalism. Such media constructions are texts where we can read how the two traits of 4GW adopted by terrorism - the collapse of the enemy from the home front and the exploitation of the opponent potentialities on its own benefit - are reflected in the construction of Bin Laden domestic imaginary, construction promoted from U.S. forces as well as from Al Qaeda. Bin Laden’s patterns of domesticity changed from 11S until his capture and death on 1st of May 2011, starting from a “cold”, nomadic and ascetic image designed as opposed to the American Way of Life, and finishing in a suburban house, that emerges from a “hot” capitalism.