CRITICAL STUDIES ON SECURITY, 2018

https://doi.org/10.1080/21624887.2018.1473670

ARTICLE

Weapons, desire and the making of war: a Lacanian response

L. R. Danil
School of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Leeds, Leeds, United Kingdom

ABSTRACT KEYWORDS
This article is partly inspired by Benjamin Meiches’ article, which was Weapons; war; desire;
published in this journal (2017), and wishes to offer an alternative psychoanalysis; Jacques
Lacan
understanding of the connection between weapons, desire and the
making of war. This article will argue that Meiches’ arguments – in
particular those focused on the issue of desire – can be equally
viewed through the prism of the work of the psychoanalyst
Jacques Lacan – even though Meiches explicitly takes on a position
that draws upon the work of Deleuze and Guattari. In so doing, the
article will argue that a focus on Lacan sheds light on the constitution
of the self and subjectivity, and the formative and indeed fundamen-
tal influence of desire on subjectivity and the social, as well as the
interconnection and feedback loop that exists between the two.
Lacan also offers an opening to not only understand desire but also
to reroute a desire for weapons, and more broadly, the making of
war, into alternative possibilities. Further, the article will also argue
that, following Meiches’ suggestion of taking the weapon–human
relationship seriously in order to tackle questions of war, domination
and other forms of political violence, psychoanalysis and distinctly,
Lacanian psychoanalysis, through its focus on the psyche, desire and
the social, could actually prove to be a useful tool in doing so.

Introduction
This article is partly inspired by Benjamin Meiches’ article, which was published in this
journal (2017), and wishes to offer an alternative understanding of the connection
between weapons, desire and the making of war. Meiches develops a speculative
account in which weapons are not just tools of violence – they are also agentic entities
with formative influence over human desires. This article will argue that Meiches’
arguments – in particular those focused on the issue of desire – can be equally viewed
through the prism of the work of the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan – even though
Meiches explicitly takes on a position that draws upon the work of Deleuze and
Guattari. In so doing, the article will argue that a focus on Lacan sheds light on the
constitution of the self and subjectivity, and the formative and indeed fundamental
influence of desire on subjectivity and the social, as well as the interconnection and
feedback loop that exists between the two. Lacan also offers an opening to not only
understand desire but also to reroute a desire for weapons, and more broadly, the

CONTACT Linda Roland Danil lindarolandd@gmail.com

This article was originally published with errors. This version has been corrected/amended. Please see Erratum (https://
doi.org/10.1080/21624887.2018.1477241).
© 2018 York University
2 L. R. DANIL

making of war, into alternative possibilities. This article will begin by outlining the
arguments by Meiches that are relevant for the purposes of this article, before moving
on to provide a brief introduction to the work of Jacques Lacan in order to effectively
contextualise the reader. The article will then move on to examine Meiches’ arguments
through the prism of Lacanian psychoanalysis in particular. The article will conclude by
arguing that Meiches has opened up a valuable space for varied debate that allows for
the conceptualisation of weapons as being more consequential than simply as instru-
ments of violence entirely subject to human intentions. Here, through a psychoanalytic
approach, it will be argued that weapons, not least of which when viewed as fetish-like
objects, have a role to play in relation to desire and the constitution of the ego, the self
and the subject and therefore have the potential to impact upon society and vice versa.
Further, the article will also argue that, following Meiches’ suggestion of taking the
weapon–human relationship seriously in order to tackle questions of war, domination
and other forms of political violence, psychoanalysis and distinctly, Lacanian psycho-
analysis, through its focus on the psyche, desire and the social, could actually prove to
be a useful tool in doing so.

A summary of Meiches’ theoretical paradigm

Meiches (2017) argues, amongst other things, that weapons have traditionally been
understood as tools of violence subject to human intentions. However, for Meiches, ‘[…]
weapons should be understood first and foremost as entities that operate on desire and
only secondly as instruments of violence’ (10). For Meiches, and in the vein of work in
new materialism, object-oriented ontology and speculative realism that foregrounds
the agency of objects in social life, weapons are also agentic entities with formative
influence over human desires and therefore are not only capable of generating desire
but also of building and influencing relationships between humans and weapons. As
Bruno Latour succinctly argues, ‘You are different with a gun in hand; the gun is different
with you holding it. You are another subject because you hold the gun; the gun is
another object because it has entered into a relationship with you’ (Latour 1994, 33). For
Meiches, the weapon and the person have a mutually affective, mutually constitutive
relationship with each other, with neither element in the relationship being fully
dominant. Thus, neither is the same once they enter into a relationship with one
another. Further, neither object nor subject has fixed essence or goals. Weapons, with
their distinct affective potentials, therefore not only impact human calculations or
empower political violence but also actively contribute to the production of subjectivity,
and, consequently, security and warfare. Meiches therefore develops a theoretical frame-
work that offers weapons an active and substantial role in the production of subjectivity,
and, as a consequence, insecurity, war and violence.
Meiches proposes a particular approach rooted in foregrounding the agency of
objects in social life, in order to approach ‘[…] human and non-human objects as a
series of affective encounters’ that produce desire – with desire here being understood
in terms of Deleuze and Guattari’s vision of desire as a ‘[…] series of forces that produce
a social field, which in turn frames how individuals respond to a particular set of
possibilities’ (12). In this vein, Meiches offers a theoretical proposition in which ‘[…]
human-weapon encounters produce forms of desire, which slowly develop into stable
 CRITICAL STUDIES ON SECURITY 3

relationships between weapons and humans’ (12). This approach, Meiches argues, has
the advantage that it does not ‘[…]predetermine the meaning of weapons by assuming
that they operate as instruments of violence, their human intended use, but instead
examines their various “productive” effects on human fantasies, bodies and politics’ (12).
Overall, Meiches wants to criticise the
[…] dominant image of weapons present in international relations […] and security studies
that subordinate the use of weapons to human intentionality. This model simultaneously
overstates the role of human interest in shaping the form and function of weapons and
understates the formative powers of weapons in generating human conduct. (10)

Specifically, for Meiches, there exist ‘[…] affective connections between weapons and
human populations’, which further ‘[…] integrate weapons into human fantasy, embodi-
ment, institutional arrangements, and aesthetic proclivities’ (10). As Meiches argues, this
focus on desire ‘[…] adds depth to existing explanations of the genesis of attachment to
weaponry at both social and somatic levels’ (13).
In addition, for Meiches, there are a number of ways to understand how weapons
affectively mould subjectivity. For example, weapons can augment and transform
human imagination – that is to say, weapons open up or allow for the imagination of
alternative scenarios, as well as allow for the possibility of extending the capacity of
human beings. An alternative position focuses on the proximity of persons and weap-
ons, such as living and becoming with weapons – that is to say, weapon socialisation
processes such as during military training – and in which a relation of embodied care
may occur. Here, this article will argue that the work of Jacques Lacan could further shed
light on the encounter between humans and weapons and could further serve useful in
examining the formative powers of weapons in generating human conduct, amongst
other things.

A brief introduction to the psychoanalysis of Jacques Lacan

For the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, the constitution of the self and subjectivity entails
three orders that he termed the Imaginary, the Symbolic and the Real (see e.g. Lacan
2006a). In ‘The Mirror Stage as Formative of the I Function as Revealed in Psychoanalytic
Experience’ (2006b), Lacan argues for a stage he refers to as the mirror stage, that is to
say, the Imaginary, which occurs in between approximately the ages of 6 and 18 months.
The mirror stage is to be understood as a process of identification, wherein the subject,
‘[…] still trapped in his motor impotence and nursling dependence’ (Lacan 2006b, 76),
assumes a specular image, a form known as the ideal-I and which gives rise to the ego,
that precedes his/her entry into the Symbolic. The ego is therefore constituted through a
feedback loop of imaginary identifications refracted through one’s specular image,
whether it is through a literal mirror or through the gaze of other people. This image,
or gestalt, will mark his/her entire mental development and is thus not to be solely
relegated to a particular time in human development. Further, the image will also
function as a screen onto which an individual will project his/her images of him/herself
in order to build a ‘statue’ of him/herself, and with which he/she will correspond to as
constituting the ‘I’. Fantasies will therefore provide the framework, or the coordinates, in
which the I is situated. As Lacan argues,
4 L. R. DANIL

This gestalt is replete with the correspondences that unite the I with the statue onto which
man projects himself, the phantoms that dominate him, and the automaton with which the
world of his own making tends to achieve fruition in an ambiguous relation.
(Lacan 2006b, 76–77; emphasis in the original)

The relation will be ambiguous because through the assumption of this image, the
infant will misrecognise him/herself as coherent and whole and will be provided with an
illusory sense of mastery over him/herself. However, given the infant’s limited motor
coordination at this stage of development and dependence on a primary caregiver
(Eyers 2012), the assumed unity and mastery are illusory, and the assumption of the
image is in fact a ‘heteromorphic identification’ (Lacan 2006b, 77). It is important to note
here that a crucial aspect of the formation of the ego is aggressivity (Lacan 2006c) – this
will be discussed in more depth later on.
The Symbolic, also known as the big Other (Lacan 1991a) for Lacan, is the realm of
language and the social, and in order to be inaugurated into it and become a subject
proper, the subject must undergo metaphorical castration and accept the Law-of-the-
Father as his/her orientating principle (or risk psychosis: Lacan 1993). As succinctly
described by Levi Paul Bryant, the subject in the Lacanian sense comes into being
when one type of system – biological human beings – encounters and is alienated by
another system – the system of language (personal communication,
18 September 2017). The Real, on the other hand, is that which escapes the Symbolic,
is intransigent to it or has yet to be codified by it, and from which we have been
permanently severed consequent to our entry into the Symbolic – a state of nature in
which it is posited that prelapsarian feelings of wholeness and completeness can be
experienced. For Lacan, the Real is ‘absolutely without fissure’ (1991c, 97) – it has not
been articulated, carved up and compartmentalised into categories by the Symbolic.
Acceding into the Symbolic, and accepting the Law-of-the-Father as the orientating
principle, functions as the push for the individual to be separated from the mythical
fullness that is posited as the mother–child unity – and which is at its apogee when the
child is gestating in the womb (Danil 2016) – and to get his/her ‘own’ identity.
Further, for Lacan, desire is the central organising principle of subjectivity (Lacan
1977, 1998; see also Kirshner 2005). For Lacan, desire is the desire of the other (Lacan
1998) – and there are a number of different ways to understand this, the most
important of which are desire is the desire for recognition, and desire is the desire
for what we think the other/Other desires – with the little ‘o’ representing another
person, and the big ‘O’ representing the Symbolic. In relation to the Other, we desire
what we think the Other desires because we are inevitably contextualised within the
Symbolic – the Symbolic is what gives rise to our desire and even to our unconscious –
alongside fantasies, the Symbolic provides the coordinates for how and what to desire.
We ask the Other what it desires, and from that socio–symbolic framework supple-
mented by fantasies, we formulate our own response to it – thus providing some
leeway for independent rejoinders. Further, desire arises as a consequence of entering
the Symbolic Order, as consequence of which the human subject is separated from the
materiality of his/her primordial bodily drives (Ruti 2008) and the experience of
absolute satisfaction or jouissance, that is to say, ‘unmediated enjoyment’ (Ruti 2008,
488). Desire is centred on a mythical object, the object cause of desire – what Lacan
 CRITICAL STUDIES ON SECURITY 5

calls the objet petit a, which holds the (illusive) promise of restoring to the subject
feelings of wholeness and plenitude.
As Kirshner (2005) argues, desire can be defined as the desire to access and achieve
the libidinal needs to which the subject no longer has access – that is to say, to have
access to the Real (see also Lacan 2006d). However, the Real can never be fully accessed
or known – except through very occasional, partial and furtive glimpses – and all the
more so precisely because, and to reiterate, the absolute jouissance it also represents is
mythical and therefore impossible. Nonetheless, the subject, throughout the course of
his/her life, will unsuccessfully attempt to achieve those feelings through inadequate
and insufficient symbolic substitutions (Danil 2016) further buttressed by fantasies. In
addition, the Real becomes inaccessible not only consequent to the entry into the
Symbolic - it can also no longer be accessed because language is an inadequate
mediator for the phenomenal world. As Kaja Silverman succinctly puts it:
The real from which language excludes the subject consists of both the subject’s own
‘being’ (its libidinal resources or needs) and the phenomenal world. Once the subject has
entered the symbolic order its organic needs pass through the […] network of signification
and are transformed in a way which makes them thereafter impossible to satisfy […]
Moreover, since language speaks no more to the reality of objects than it does to that of
subjects, it effects as complete a rupture with the phenomenal world. (1983, 166)

Thus, a focus on Lacan offers the possibility of perceiving desire in a different way to that
proposed in the article by Meiches (a difference which will be elaborated upon in the next
section) – but whereby desire is nonetheless likewise regarded as a fundamental organis-
ing principle of the self, subjectivity and the social, and in which subjectivity and the social
are inextricably linked and interdependent. Further, Lacan also offers the potential of
examining the role that the Imaginary and therefore fantasies have to play in the
constitution of the ego, and more broadly, in the formation and support of the social
(Žižek 2003). Any change in the social thus must begin with the individual, and more
specifically, in the individual psyche (Aristodemou 2014a; Aristodemou 2014b) – and that
includes in relation to the individual and collective identification with and attachment to
weapons, and violence and war more broadly. That is to say, understanding the individual
is key to understanding the collective and the social and vice versa.

Meiches and Lacan

It is at the point where Meiches calls for a theoretical emphasis on the relationship between
weapons and the production of desire that is of interest in this article. Further, and more
specifically, Meiches argues that the emphasis on foregrounding the agency of objects and
desire offers three important contributions to the field of critical security studies (two of which
will be discussed here): first, for Meiches, focusing on desire adds depth to existing explana-
tions of the genesis of attachment to weaponry at both social and somatic levels. Second, the
article concentrates on the affective potential of weapons. Meiches develops a theory of
weapon agency based on the work of JFC Fuller, Deleuze and Guattari, and a number of other
contemporary theorists of violence. Meiches suggests that weapons are defined by distinctive
affective potentials that exert a formative influence on social life, rather than just constituting
passive instruments of violence. As Meiches argues, ‘[…] weapons do not merely impact
6 L. R. DANIL

human calculations or facilitate political violence, but actively contribute to the production of
subjectivity and, as a consequence, security and warfare’ (14).
Here, I read Meiches’ work as actually bearing strong parallels to the work of Lacan, rather
than Deleuze and Guattari – two theorists that, in spite of their criticisms of psychoanalysis, also
drew upon it. What needs to be differentiated, however, is their differing view on desire:
Deleuze and Guattari, like Lacan, view desire as a central organising principle of subjectivity
(Zevnik 2016). However, for Lacan, desire arises out of lack – and indeed, lack is the ground of
being,1 whereas for Deleuze and Guattari, desire is on the contrary a positive force, not the
consequence of any lack (Deleuze and Guattari 2000). In Deleuze and Guattari’s work, lack is a
myth that arises out of capitalist social relations, which relegate social reproduction in the
private sphere in accordance to an Oedipal framework that inculcates subjects with lack so that
they may be rendered more pliant to the capitalist mode of production.
In this regard however, I side with Lacan, since as I perceive it, and moreover, given the
unavoidable altricial nature of the human infant – desire must arise out of lack, otherwise it
would have no reason to exist at all – capitalist social relations and the capitalist mode of
production have nothing to do with it. Holland (2011), drawing upon the work of Brown
(1985), makes a similar argument when he highlights the reality of prolonged infantile
dependency, which in his view has direct and considerable effects on the human psyche.
As Holland argues, ‘This period of dependency of human infants […] fosters exaggerated
expectations for physiological and psychological gratification [and] intense separation
anxiety (since separation from caregivers at this stage means death) [.]’ (2011, 45). For
Holland, much like the position taken here, infantile separation anxiety has a clear biolo-
gical cause and is a separate issue from capitalist social relations and the capitalist mode of
production, although the two may find affinity with each other. Lacan2 similarly highlights
the prematurity of the human infant at birth – a prematurity which precisely propels the
infant into the mirror stage and substitutes the fragmented image of the body with the
alienating identification with totality and mastery (Lacan 2006b).
The argument I wish to propose here is that a weapon can become an integral point of
identification for particular individuals, and even a fetish-like3 object,4 specifically as one
specific instance of what Lacan termed the objet petit a. For Lacan, the objet petit a is that
which stands in for the Thing, or the Real – again, it is the object cause of desire (Lacan
2015) (its engine) and promises to permanently satiate desire and restore fullness to the
subject – an impossibility since desire can never be definitively fulfilled. Further, the
fetishised object also has the advantage of giving the subject a feeling of mastery and
power – the object can be controlled by the subject whilst at the same time satisfying
certain fantasy coordinates of desire. The objet petit a has no specific form and in fact can
take on a variety of guises, whether objects and/or subjects – this provides leeway for
individuals to identify with particular objects/subjects, to a certain extent idiosyncratically,
and also allows flexibility in terms of what or whom they desire. Individuals may therefore
choose to identify with weapons (or not), depending on their life histories, socio–symbolic
contexts and the imaginary fantasies buttressing them – much like individuals may choose
to identify with certain political parties, religions, beliefs, lifestyles and so forth.
As a consequence, the important thing to note here is that identifications that may
have been made in particular socio–symbolic contexts further buttressed by fantasies
(Žižek 2003), which engendered and may have further encouraged them, can be broken
and rerouted – this is, indeed, one of the goals of psychoanalysis, particularly when an
 CRITICAL STUDIES ON SECURITY 7

analysand has developed an (unhealthy) attachment or even fixation to a subject/object.

As Maria Aristodemou argues, the ultimate goal of (Lacanian) psychoanalysis is to force
the analysand to confront his/her extimate core (Aristodemou 2016) – that is to say, the
Real – and to shatter him/her as a subject to make room for the birth of a new subject
(Aristodemou 2014b, 2016). With any luck, the subject, in spite of the realisation of his/her
extimate core – an experience that can be profoundly unsettling, since the Real is pure,
abstract negativity (Žižek 2006) – will choose to deal with the Real, or lack, in productive,
positive ways that, within the context of this article, minimise if not obviate the need for
weapons and violence more generally.
I wish to momentarily turn to Sigmund Freud’s work on fetishism in order to investigate
this argument further. In Freud’s essay ‘Fetishism’ (2001b), the fetish has distinctly sexual
connotations and is linked to a fear of castration. However, this is only at the level of a
literal reading, and reading the text metaphorically also has the potential to generate
some interesting insights. According to Freud, fetishism is triggered by a trauma of
recognising that the mother lacks a penis – the fetishised object and the fetishistic fantasy
provide comfort, reassurance and safety from the fear and threat of castration. In my
reading, recognising that the mother (or a caretaker) lacks a penis actually entails coming
to the realisation that the mother cannot offer feelings of plenitude or wholeness –
feelings that were at their zenith when the child was gestating in the womb, and where
there was symbiotic unity with the mother. The mother, let alone anyone else, cannot
provide an ultimate resolution to one’s lack, ways to definitively satiate desire (only death
can do that), or provide answers to who we are or to life’s meaning.
Returning to the issue of identification, here I will make the example of the state soldier
and further draw upon the work of Lacan, specifically in relation to the Imaginary and the
mirror stage and the Symbolic. My contention is that a weapon (as well as other objects)
functions as an object that reflects back an image of the person holding the weapon, even
if that object, strictly speaking, may lack a reflective surface – since all that is required is a
source of effective identification. A civilian’s transformation into a soldier entails precisely
this – that is to say, an inculcation, particularly during the training period, in which he/she
begins to perceive him/herself through the prism of the weapons he/she possesses and
utilises, as well as through the prism of the war machine more broadly.5 This process of
inculcation is aptly demonstrated by, for example, the Rifleman’s Creed, which is part of
basic US Marine Corps doctrine and goes as follows:

This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine. My rifle is my best friend. It is my
life. I must master it as I must master my life. My rifle, without me, is useless. Without my
rifle, I am useless. I must fire my rifle true. I must shoot straighter than my enemy who is
trying to kill me. I must shoot him before he shoots me. I will…. My rifle and myself know
that what counts in this war is not the rounds we fire, the noise of our burst, nor the smoke
we make. We know that it is the hits that count. We will hit…. My rifle is human, even as I,
because it is my life. Thus, I will learn it as a brother. I will learn its weaknesses, its strength,
its parts, its accessories, its sights and its barrel. I will ever guard it against the ravages of
weather and damage as I will ever guard my legs, my arms, my eyes and my heart against
damage. I will keep my rifle clean and ready. We will become part of each other. We will….
Before God, I swear this creed. My rifle and myself are the defenders of my country. We are
the masters of our enemy. We are the saviors of my life. So be it, until victory is America’s
and there is no enemy, but peace!’6
8 L. R. DANIL

The Rifleman’s Creed establishes a mutually constitutive relationship (‘My rifle, without me,
is useless. Without my rifle, I am useless’) between the soldier and the rifle specifically,
wherein the rifle effectively acts as a mirror reflecting back to the soldier as a source of
identification that becomes part of the soldier’s self-image and self-perception; indeed, here
the rifle becomes a crucial part of the soldier’s sense of self and identity. The soldier will learn
‘[…] its weaknesses, its strengths, its parts, its accessories, its sights and its barrel’ and he/she
will ‘guard against the ravages of weather and damage’ as he/she guards his/her legs, arms
and heart against damage. There is also a profound intimacy established between the
soldier and the rifle – the rifle is the soldier’s ‘best friend’ that indeed he/she must even learn
like a ‘brother’, thus becoming ‘part of each other’. In this vein, John Hockey, drawing on
data derived from participant observation of UK infantry soldiers, has explored the manner
in which endless weapons drills establish a pre-reflective relationship to one’s rifle, to the
point where the rifle is ultimately felt and thought to be an extension of the body (Hockey
2013). In addition, it is not just at the level of the mirror stage, or the Imaginary, and
therefore the ego that the soldier is moulded – the Symbolic also has a role to play. Here, the
Symbolic narratives about what it means to be a soldier and part of a war machine are also
inculcated into the civilian, during and prior training so that the civilian may turn into a
soldier proper – so that he/she may be reborn into the soldier subjectivity, wherein he/she
begins to identify with, live out and effectively become a soldier within an Imaginary–
Symbolic framework. Another interesting example in this regard is the description that
World War II Spitfire pilots have given in relation to the aircraft. One pilot bluntly described
flying the Spitfire in the following way: ‘[The aircraft] became part of you’ (Cited in Bishop
2010, 338). In a Roald Dahl (who himself served in the Royal Air Force as a pilot during World
War II) short story, the pilot and the Spitfire become one – the identification is so complete
that parts of the plane correspond and even are part of the body and vice versa. As Dahl
writes:

[…] the Spitfire was not a Spitfire but a part of his own body; the muscles of his arms and
legs were in the wings and in the tail of the machine so that when he banked and turned
and dived and climbed he was not moving his hands and legs but only the wings and the
tail and the body of the aeroplane; for the body of the Spitfire was the body of the pilot,
and there was no difference between one and the other. (1992, 204–205)

Here, I want to offer an alternative perspective to the manner in which, according to

Meiches, ‘weapons affectively mould subjectivity’ (7). I do not think that it is a question of
primarily, or exclusively, affects in relation to the moulding of subjectivity, but rather, a
process of fantasy, mirror-image identifications at the level of the ego with the weapon,
further buttressed by symbolic constructions that the subject narrates to him/herself and
becomes attached to and further identifies with. In relation to the mirror stage, however,
and again, the direction that the ego takes, prior to its social determination – that is to say,
prior to the addition of the Symbolic – is a fictional one. The human infant, due to its altricial
condition, in between the ages of roughly 6 and 18 months is still situated in an incoherent
position that necessitates the input of a caretaker/s to ensure his/her survival. The image
that is reflected back offers the illusion of completeness and wholeness, and which to
reiterate, will continue throughout one’s life and will never be fully resolved. As Lacan
argues:
 CRITICAL STUDIES ON SECURITY 9

[…] this form situates the agency known as the ego, prior to its social determination, in a
fictional direction will forever remain irreducible for any singular individual or, rather, that
will only asymptotically approach the subject’s becoming, no matter how successful the
dialectical synthesis by which he must resolve, as I, his discordance with his own reality.
(Lacan 2006b, 76; emphasis in the original)

As Lacan further argues, the total form of the body that is provided in the Ideal-I, is a ‘mirage’
(Lacan 2006b, 76) and actually stands ‘[…] in opposition to the turbulent movements with
which the subject feels he animates it’ (Lacan 2006b, 76). Therefore, no matter how much
the subject will engage in work to live up to his/her image in a labour of dialectical synthesis,
fullness and complete ontological security will never be achieved. In relation to the weapon,
the argument here is that regardless of what weapon an individual is wielding, that weapon
will never provide unequivocal answers in terms of security, fullness or wholeness, whether
at the level of the ego or in broader terms. The weapon – and on a collective, social level,
war machines and accompanying symbolic narratives of the State and the Nation – like all
other objects/subjects through which individuals view themselves and mirror back their
own image – will never offer a final, definitive way out of feelings of internal discord or lack.
It is in this way that Lacanian psychoanalysis can offer insights into why somatic and social
attachments are formed to weapons and offer potential resolutions. In addition, this
argument also has a dimension that relates to desire – desire can never achieve full
satisfaction because desire has no definitive object – it is constantly searching for something
else, and no object can ever provide it with permanent, unequivocal satisfaction – there is
only metonymic slippage from one object to the next (Fink 1995). Amongst other things,
therefore, Lacan forces us to confront what can be a deeply uncomfortable revelation – that
we are lacking and that we try to cover up that lack with imaginary fantasies and symbolic
fictions that may not necessarily always be in our best interests. Such excessive attachment,
or fetishisation, to weapons, as well as accompanying symbolic narratives of the State
and the Nation, could potentially preclude other imaginaries and symbolic narratives –
imaginaries and symbolic narratives that are not dependent on weapons for the resolution
of conflict, whether in the realm of politics or otherwise.
A further important issue that needs to be mentioned here is the notion of aggressivity,
which is central to Lacan’s thought in relation to the ego. When might an individual become
aggressive, and within the context of the arguments made here, therefore wish to utilise a
weapon, or at its most extreme, wage war? For Lacan, the impulse for aggressive tendencies
is linked to the fragmented body – it is triggered by the threat of ‘[…] castration, emascula-
tion, mutilation, dismemberment, dislocation, evisceration, devouring and bursting open of
the body’ (Lacan 2006c, 85) – as well as being what the ego wants to inflict upon that which
threatens to castrate, emasculate, mutilate and so on. It needs to be noted here that
I disagree with Richard Boothby’s (2001, 2014) argument that this is a misinterpretation of
Lacan. For Boothby, what Lacan is actually arguing for is a rebellion against the ideal unity of
the self, not a defence of it. In his interpretation, aggressivity is therefore ‘[…] a drive toward
violation of the Imaginary form of the body that models the ego’ (2014, 39). In my reading,
Lacan may be arguing for a drive towards self-destructiveness – but that is not all he is
arguing for. As Lacan argues, there can be an aggressive reaction if the ego is made to
experience ‘a sense of inferiority’ (Lacan 2006c, 93), with the ego retaliating by accusing
what/who has caused that sense of inferiority as not being worthwhile. As an important side
note, by all means, to protect and even defend oneself when one has been threatened is
10 L. R. DANIL

understandable and justifiable – the problem arises when the protection of the ego is taken
to its extreme without other options having been considered first. Additionally, Lacan also
warns of the excessive promotion of the ego at the expense of community, which in his view
leads to ‘[…] an isolation of the soul [.]’ (2006c, 99).
Within the context of this article, therefore, the identification with and use of a
weapon and the making of war can also be understood as originating in threats to
the ego, those that threaten the illusory sense of mastery and coherence that the ego
tries to achieve. Further, aggressiveness can also arise out of competition – that is to say,
the competition for what Lacan terms the ‘object of the other’s desire’ (Lacan 2006c, 92).
I interpret this in two different ways: first, there is the competition to have the object of
the other’s desire, such as a material object; and second, there is the competition to be
centre stage in receiving recognition from others, as well as the big Other or the
Symbolic – the latter can be formalised, for example, through the giving of awards,
honours etc. In this regard, Lacan draws upon an example made by Saint Augustine and
the infant’s desire to be the centre of the mother’s attention – specifically, Saint
Augustine relates having ‘[…] seen and known an infant to be jealous […] It became
pale, and cast bitter looks on its foster-brother’ (Lacan 2006c, 93). In relation to competi-
tion, Lacan also makes a very interesting argument in relation to living space (for an
interesting discussion, see also Brennan 1993) – Lacan draws a parallel between ‘[…] the
space in which the imagery of the ego develops, and which intersects the objective
space of reality’ (Lacan 2006c, 99). As Lacan implies, aggressivity is also brought about
through competition for living space, which is seen as being correlated to the subjective
imagery of the ego. Here, for Lacan, ‘[…] war is increasingly proving to be the inevitable
and necessary midwife of all of our organizational progress’ (2006c, 100).
Returning to the issue of the proximity with weapons and the affective moulding of
subjectivity, Meiches makes a similar argument that has striking affinity with the
Lacanian line of thought that has been set out above. As well as taking on a relationship
of embodied care, with a soldier, for example, taking care of his/her rifle – the ‘familiarity
and everydayness’ (16) induced by socialisation processes such as through military
training introduces ‘[…] a potential for weapons to redefine the self through a set of
somatic habits and emphatic links that make living with weapons a key part of social life’
(16). In the relationship with weapons, not only fantasies but also ‘[…] the corporeality
and sociality of the bodies that encounter them’ are altered (8). Further, Meiches argues
that ‘[…] weapons intervene on somatic rhythms and relations of embodiment via their
proximity and therefore require strict macro- and micropolitical regimes of governance’
(16) and, in relation to macro- and micropolitical regimes of governance, makes the
example of the laws of war – which govern both on the level of States as well as
combatants. At the level of the laws of war, there is of course parallel with Lacanian
psychoanalytic theory insofar as the laws of war form part of the larger regime of the
Symbolic – which sets up the coordinates of law and the social more broadly.

Conclusion
In his examination of the relationship between humans and weapons, amongst other
things, Meiches offers a valuable window through which to examine the role of desire in
shaping that relationship, as well as moving beyond regarding weapons solely as objects
 CRITICAL STUDIES ON SECURITY 11

subject to human intentions. Meiches concludes his article by making the argument that
the human–weapon relationship needs to be taken more seriously in order to tackle
questions of war, domination and other forms of political violence. The main argument
that has been made in this article is that psychoanalysis, and specifically here Lacanian
psychoanalysis, can provide productive tools with which to more closely examine the
ego, the role of fantasies, the subject and its desires, as well as the social, of which the
subject is a constituent part and vice versa. Further, Lacanian psychoanalysis is
grounded upon acknowledging that our being is grounded in lack – and that no subject
or object, as particular manifestations of the petit objet a that can metonymically and
idiosyncratically slide and change – and not even the big Other, or the Symbolic – has
the definitive answers to that lack. However, realising this is by all means not meant to
be a wholly negative situation – rather, it is a source of creativity and possibility, through
which we further realise what is driving us, both consciously and unconsciously, and
therefore make changes for the better if necessary, with better identifications, even if
not permanently and fully satisfying, made. Within the context of this article, this would
also mean acknowledging the identifications with weapons that may have been made,
and for what reasons – such as out of anxiety, fear, insecurity and feelings of lack in
general, amongst many other possible reasons – and ways to negotiate those feelings in
order to reduce the dependency on weapons and therefore to reduce the potential for
violence and war more broadly.

Notes
1. In one of his seminars, Lacan puts it thus: ‘Desire is a relation of being to lack. This lack is the
lack of being properly speaking. It isn’t the lack of this or that, but lack of being whereby the
being exists’ (Lacan 1991b, 223).
2. Freud also discussed the issue of infantile dependency in his work – see, for example Freud,
2001a.
3. For the homology between the objet petit a and the fetish, see also, for example Williams
(undated).
4. Meiches also makes reference to weapon fetishes in particular, although in passing and not in
an explicitly Lacanian sense.
5. Which is not to say that the process of identifying with the weapon and the war machine more
broadly will always be a smooth process or occur homogenously for all recruits – resistance to
weapons, military training and military institutions and practices, both deliberate and non-
deliberate, can occur – in this regard, see for example the work of Emma Newlands (2013;
2014), which focuses in particular on British Army recruits during World War II. An extreme form
of resistance is of course conscientious objection, with Lois S. Bibbings having produced
excellent work in this regard, particularly, but not exclusively, with a focus on conscientious
objectors during the Great War (Bibbings 2003a; 2003b; 2011; 2012).
6. Of course, it would be remiss to not mention Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket (1987) as well
here.

Acknowledgements
My thanks to Antoine Bousquet, Levi Paul Bryant and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful
comments on an earlier draft of this article.
12 L. R. DANIL

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor
Linda Roland Danil completed her PhD in the School of Sociology and Social Policy at the
University of Leeds in 2015.

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