Description: In this original theory of power, Brian Massumi explains how the logic of preemption governs U.S. military policy in the War on Terror and how that logic spills over from the war front to the home front. Threats are now felt into reality and power refocuses on what may emerge. The mode of power embodying the logic of preemption is ontopower.
Review Quotes: "Brian Massumi's latest addition to our understanding of power may be the most important addition to grand strategy since On War. ... Ontopower is less a guidebook than a warning against assuming we will be right. Without making a moral argument, Brian Massumi effectively describes the moral limitations of the power to preempt, the rewriting of history through the actions of the present, the confirmation of what could have been into what was. It should be studied by practitioners of power--professionals who owe it to the country to have discussions now, so as to have answers when policy demands action." --Phil Reynolds "Air Force Research Institute"