Having characterising both terrorist subject and rogue state as representative of some overarching menace, Devetak posits a reading of the ‘global war on terror’ which seeks to transcend popular conceptions in which the war is limited to the coalition’s military presence in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Instead, Devetak argues that the narrative of the ‘war on terror’ is Gothic in character, positing a diffuse conflict constituted by the sum of counter-terrorist practices and strategies of containment. Rooted in ‘fear; not simply of a single scary incident, but … as an existential condition or state of being’ (link, p. 625), these practices have rewritten the international landscape as a ‘desolate [landscape], alienating and full of menace.’ (link, p. 2)
