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Close Encounters in War Journal – Call for articles for Issue n. 6 (2023)

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Close Encounters in War and Propaganda: The Battles for Hearts and Minds

Gino Boccasile (1901-1952) WWII Italian anti-American Fascist propaganda poster 1943. Public domain image.

As the war following the invasion of Ukraine rages with a deluge of air strikes, sieges and ground operations, the world holds its breath witnessing the conflict’s narrative being shaped by the global media as well as international politicians. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky tells his people how to view the war, helping them to make sense of the conflict and, more importantly, building the belief in Ukraine’s ultimate success. Russia, too, has a specific narrative of the war aimed at building support for the military operation which is described as “denazification” and “demilitarization” of Ukraine, but never as an invasion.

This parallel war to win hearts and minds is not new in the history of warfare. In fact, it is a rather crucial aspect of any conflict, but it has certainly become critical since the Twentieth century, with the technological development of media which has allowed to bring the news to every home. Besides strengthening morale, the aim of any war propaganda campaign is also to demoralize the enemy and break their will to fight. Because of its use over the centuries, the term “propaganda” has gained very strong negative connotations, evocative of some kind of sinister activity.

In the Twentieth century, propaganda has come to be seen mostly as manipulated information. In the United States in particular, the Committee on Public Information, also known as Creel Committee, in the Great War had created an unprecedented propaganda campaign, distorting perceptions, unleashing hate and sometimes even persecution against Germans in America. In the Thirties and Forties, the creation of refined and very efficient propaganda machines under the totalitarian regimes established in Europe between the wars strengthened its perception as an anti-democratic tool and a threat to individual freedom. The Third Reich’s Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda in Nazi Germany was headed by Joseph Goebbels and spread its message through art, music, radio and film, which had a key role in disseminating ideas on the superiority of the German military power and on antisemitism.

Propaganda, broadly defined as “the expression of opinions or actions carried out deliberately by individuals or groups with a view to influencing the opinions or actions of other individuals or groups for predetermined ends and through psychological manipulation” (Koppes&Black, Hollywood Goes to War, 2000, pp. 49-50), seemed to correspond more to the enemy’s approach. Allied information policies came to be known instead as psychological operations, with the creation of the Psychological Warfare Branch which had the specific purpose of countering the enemy’s message and promoting alternative Allied interpretations of current events. This approach became a vital strategic contribution to winning the war.

With the Cold War, these policies undertaken to counter the communist regimes’ propaganda came to be known as ‘public diplomacy’, which deals with “the cultivation by governments of public opinion in other countries; the interaction of private groups and interests in one country with another; the reporting of foreign affairs and its impact on policy; communication between those whose job is communication, as diplomats and foreign correspondents” (Cull, Public Diplomacy, 2006). In other words, it is persuasion through “soft power”, to adopt the definition of former National Intelligence Council chief Joseph S. Nye. If “hard power” is the ability to induce other countries to change their positions through the use of military and economic power, “soft power” involves “the ability to get what you want by attracting and persuading others to adopt your goals […] attraction is much cheaper than coercion” (Nye, The Paradox of American Power, 2002, p. 15).

Issue n. 6 of the CEIWJ wishes to investigate the theme of “close encounters in war” in connection with propaganda, psychological warfare and public diplomacy. We want to study individual testimonies and experiences as well as cultural productions and diplomatic sources through a variety of historical periods and examine them through a range of theoretical and critical perspectives.

We invite, in accordance with the scientific purpose of the journal, contributions that focus on human dimensions and perspectives to this topic. We, therefore, seek articles that analyse the close encounters in war with propaganda, psychological warfare and public diplomacy from the point of view of human experience, in ancient, modern and contemporary periods.

The following aspects (among others) may be considered:

  • Representation and perception of self and others;
  • Language, public information and propaganda (clichés, conceptual distortion, derogatory expressions, rhetoric manipulation, etc.);
  • Propaganda, public diplomacy and ideology (e.g. racism, nationalism, religious fanaticism, etc.);
  • Ethical and moral problems of propaganda;
  • The critique of propaganda through Micro-History and Oral History;
  • False myths and invented traditions;
  • Anti-propaganda attitudes: pacifism, criticism, non-violence, conscience objection, and sabotage;
  • Propaganda, public diplomacy and diversity (gender, disability, ethnicity, cultural heritage, etc.);
  • Pop culture, psychological warfare and propaganda (film, TV, journalism, and comics);
  • Propaganda and personal narratives (diaries, memoirs, and letters);
  • Literary fiction and propaganda;
  • The relationship between propaganda and science;
  • The impact of propaganda, psychological warfare and public diplomacy on local communities.

CEIWJ encourages inter/multidisciplinary approaches and dialogue among different scientific fields to promote discussion and scholarly research. The blending of historical approaches with such disciplines as History, Cultural Studies, Philosophy, International Relations, Intelligence Studies, Literary Studies, Media and Film Studies, Psychology, Communication and similar will be warmly welcome. Contributions from established scholars, early-career researchers, and practitioners who have dealt with the close encounter with propaganda, psychological warfare and public diplomacy in war in the course of their activities will be considered. Case studies may include different historical periods and geographic areas.

The editors of the Close Encounters in War Journal invite the submission of abstracts of 250 words in English by 31 March 2023 to ceiwj@nutorevelli.org. The authors invited to submit their works will be required to send articles of 6000-8000 words (endnotes included, bibliographical references not included in word-count), in English by 16 June 2023 to ceiwj@nutorevelli.org. All articles will undergo a process of double-blind peer review. We will notify the results of the peer-reviewing in September 2023. Final versions of revised articles will be submitted by November 2023.

Please see the submission guidelines.

Download the CFA in PDF.

CALL FOR ARTICLES: Issue n. 5 (2022) – “Science, Technology, and the Close Encounters in War”

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We are happy to announce that the round for submitting contributions to the Close Encounters in War Journal is now open for the next issue of 2022, n. 5, which is devoted to the topic “Science, Technology and the Close Encounters in War”.

Download the CFA in pdf here

Since prehistoric flint-headed arrows and spears evolved from hunting tools into weapons, all the different peoples introduced technological innovations that changed the face of warfare. Hittites fought on charts; the Greek infantry consisted of heavy-armoured hoplites; the Roman legionnaires fought with the deadly iron gladius and invented innovative war-machines and techniques to besiege enemy cities and fortify their own positions; the Frank horsemen used the stirrup to ride stably on horses, thus giving birth to modern cavalry. In medieval Japan, the Samurais fought with the katana, a sword that was a masterpiece of metallurgy and craftsmanship. During the sixteenth century, firearms appeared on the European battlefields, which changed warfare forever (also inspiring Ludovico Ariosto’s contempt for such a non-heroic way of fighting). Although hand-to-hand weapons remained the first source of wounding until the early twentieth century, artillery gained an increasingly dominant role on the battlefield, especially during the Napoleonic campaigns in Europe (1803-1815) and the American Civil War (1861-1865), with significant psychological effects on the soldiers. The increase in firepower rocketed in twentieth-century wars as the millions of shells of all calibres – including gas bombs – fired on the western front between 1914 and 1918 show. During the Second World War hundreds of thousands of tons of explosives were dropped over Europe and Japan and two atom bombs destroyed the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which started the cold war and the era of the nuclear deterrent, a new form of technological and strategic warfare.

War involves science and technology not only with regard to increasing the destructivity of weapons. One may mention, for example, the effort made by a team of British scientists led by mathematician Alan Turing to crack the German coding-machine Enigma during the Second World War. New techniques in healing the wounded and sick soldiers were developed during the Crimean War (1853-1856) and since then war has represented an opportunity to experiment with new surgical treatments to cure septic affections, wounds, fractures, concussion, poisoning, mutilation, and so on, which has also given impulse to the implementation of state-of-the-art medical equipment and high-tech prosthetics. As far as industry and scientific research is undeniably involved with warfare, scientists, technicians, and technologists strive to find new ways of mitigating the negative impact of war. Chemists, physicists, engineers, medical doctors, and other scientists made enormous efforts to support the fighting troops by carrying out a parallel and often obscure battle in laboratories, offices, and factories. The intertwining of science, technology, and war is therefore a complex and fascinating aspect of the history of war that tells much about how our perception of warfare has evolved through time.

Issue n. 5 of CEIWJwill investigate the theme of close encounters in war in connection to scientific and technological development by exploring its facets on a micro-scale, by studying individual testimonies and experiences, and from the theoretical and critical perspectives throughout history. We invite, in accordance with the scientific purpose of the journal, contributions that focus on the human dimension and perspective rather than on the broader understanding of how science, technology and war have affected each other in general. We, therefore, seek articles that analyse the close encounter in war with science and technology from the point of view of human experience, in ancient, modern and contemporary periods.

The following questions (among others) may be taken into account:

  • How has the close encounter with technological novelties in war over diverse historical periods, from ancient conflicts to cyber-war, affected witnesses and their narratives (e.g. chemical warfare; biological warfare; nuclear warfare; explosives and firearms; shell-shock; firearms vs. hand-to-hand combat weapons; etc.)?
  • How is the close encounter with science and technology in war approached in oral history and personal narratives?
  • How is the close encounter with science and technology in war approached in literature, cinema and TV, photography, ICT, and the media?
  • How does technology affect the representation of the close encounter in war, for example, through photography, digital imaging, satellites, drones, ICT, and videogames;
  • To what extent do scientists/technologists participate in war through their work and with which ethical implications (e.g. from the perspectives of physics, nuclear research, chemistry, biology, medicine, and engineering)?
  • How does the close encounter with science and technology in war affects the human response to violence, for example through ICT?
  • What relation does connect technology, trauma, and healing (e.g. war medicine as a form of close encounter in war concerning healing techniques, history of war medicine and Medical Corps, war and prosthetics, war and mutilation, trauma, and PTSD)?
  • What are the psychological and ethical implications of encountering science and technology in war?
  • Can the close encounter with science and technology in war help understand the relationship between humans and their environment, for example, concerning the Anthropocene, the impact of technological warfare on the environment, the deployment of animals in war, and the exploitation of natural resources.

CEIWJ encourages inter/multidisciplinary approaches and dialogue among different scientific fields to promote discussion and scholarly research. The blending of the Humanities with such disciplines as Biology, Chemistry, Engineering, Ethology, Medicine, Physics, and similar will be warmly welcome. Contributions from established scholars, early-career researchers, and practitioners who have dealt with the close encounter with science and technology in war in the course of their activities will be considered. Case studies may include different historical periods and geographic areas.

The editors of Close Encounters in War Journal invite the submission of abstracts of 250 words in English by 21 March 2022 to ceiwj@nutorevelli.org. The authors invited to submit their works will be required to send articles of 6000-8000 words (endnotes included, bibliographical references not included in word-count: please see submission guidelines at https://closeencountersinwar.org/instruction-for-authors-submissions/) in English by 15 June 2022 to ceiwj@nutorevelli.org. All articles will undergo a process of double-blind peer-review. We will notify the results of the peer-reviewing in September 2022. Final versions of revised articles will be submitted by November of 2022.

Call for articles: CEIWJ n. 4 (2021), “Emotions and Close Encounters in War”

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The editors of the CEIWJ invite to submit abstracts by February 10, 2021

The universe of emotions has always represented a major challenge for research in every field of knowledge, from Philosophy to Physics, from Psychology to the Arts. Although everyone knows what emotions are insofar as almost everyone can “feel”, as it comes to provide a clear or systematic explanation of emotions, words fail. Today, interdisciplinary studies see cognitivists working side by side with psychologists, linguists, anthropologists, biologists, historians, and philosophers to elaborate insightful theories of emotions. One breakthrough that has oriented the new research agenda since the 1990s consists in the claim that the human mind is – despite the rationalist tradition rooted in Descartes’s philosophy and the following theories of Enlightenment and Positivism – emotional (see, for example, pivotal studies by Antonio Damasio and Joseph Ledoux in the 1990s).

During the preparation of Issue n. 3, devoted to post-traumatic stress disorder, we have grown even more aware that war and emotions are deeply entwined. We may even dare to say that if humans go to war, it is mostly due to emotions, although the rational urge to organise and explain war in term of science is equally powerful (as historian Bernd Hüppauf and ethologists such as Irenäus Eibl-Eibelsfeld have demonstrated). For sure, the individual caught in a war, from its preparation to the very experience of battle, is exposed to a great number of emotional stimuli that affect their reactions and decision-making. Propaganda, the feeling of “belonging”, affective bonds, ethical inclinations, and cultural notions such as racism, nationalism, patriotism, cosmopolitanism, as only some of the numerous and varied contributing factors that may lead people to make war or to avoid it. We believe that the “close encounter” makes this list as well as a fundamental emotional experience in war.

Issue n. 4 of CEIWJ will aim to investigate the theme of close encounters in connection to the emotions by exploring its facets both on a micro-scale, by studying individual testimonies and experiences, and on a theoretical and critical basis throughout history. CEIWJ encourages inter/multidisciplinary approaches and dialogue among different scientific fields. We therefore welcome articles that frame the topic within the context of close encounters in war from the perspective of Aesthetics, Anthropology, Arts, Classics, Cognitive Science, Ethics, History, Linguistics, Politics, Psychology, Sociology, and other disciplines relevant for the investigation of the topic. Case studies may include different historical periods as well as over different geographic areas.

We invite articles which analyse the connection between war and emotions from ancient to modern and contemporary periods, from the perspective of the encounter, reaching beyond the study of military tactics and strategy and focusing on the emotional dimension of how human beings “encounter” each other – or themselves – in war. Contributions are invited to promote discussion and scholarly research from established scholars, early-career researchers, and from practitioners who have dealt with the emotional response to war in the course of their activities.

Topics and research fields that can be investigated include but are not limited to:

  • Theoretical inter/multidisciplinary approaches to the study of emotions and war;
  • The emotional impact of war on culture and social behaviour;
  • The emotional and ethical impact of language in the context of war (propaganda, pacifism, anti-war literature, etc.);
  • The emotional aspects of oral history, memory studies, therapy, and PTSD-counselling in theory and practice;
  • Expressing and representing emotions and war in music, figurative arts, literature, testimonies and personal narratives;
  • War and the emotional elaboration of death, mourning, trauma, and loss;
  • The emotional impact of colonial and civil wars, captivity and deportation;
  • Emotional response to war crimes and military justice;
  • Emotional implications of otherness, race, and gender in war-contexts.

The editors of Close Encounters in War Journal invite the submission of abstracts of 250 words in English by 10 February 2021 to ceiwj@nutorevelli.org. The authors invited to submit their works will be required to send articles of 6000-8000 words (endnotes included, bibliographical references not included in word-count: please see submission guidelines at https://closeencountersinwar.org/instruction-for-authors-submissions/) in English by 30 June 2021 to ceiwj@nutorevelli.org. All articles will undergo a process of double-blind peer-review. We will notify the results of the peer-reviewing in September 2021. Final versions of revised articles will be submitted by November of 2021.

Call for short stories and flash-fiction

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Call for fiction on the theme “PTSD and Close Encounters in War”

Close Encounters in War Journal (www.closeencountersinwar.org) is a peer-reviewed journal aimed at studying war as a human experience, through interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary approaches ranging from the Humanities to the Social Sciences. The third issue (n. 3) of the journal will be thematic and dedicated to the experience of PTSD as a consequence of war and conflict, and titled “Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder as Aftermath of Close Encounters in War”.

In connection with the publication of Issue n. 3, the website www.closeencountersinwar.org will host a brand new section devoted to fiction. We therefore invite authors to submit unpublished short stories (between 2500 and 5000 words) and flash-fiction (up to 500 words) on the topic of conflict-related PTSD. We accept stories in English, typed in Times 12, and double-spaced. Please submit by 31st March 2020 to ceiw2018@gmail.com. Please send doc, rtf, or odt files only. Please bear in mind that the CEIWJ is an independent project run by volunteers and that we cannot pay for your stories. Submission is free of charge and each author can submit only one story. Copyright for short stories and flash-fiction remains with the authors. We can accept multiple submissions (but please inform us immediately in case your story is accepted for publication elsewhere). Please write your full name, email address, title of the work, and word-count on the first page of your stories. Make sure that you mention in your email whether you wish to apply for the section “short stories” or “flash-fiction” when you submit.

We will publish your stories on our website in autumn 2020. Thank you for allowing us the privilege of reading your work!

Issue n. 2 (2019) of CEIWJ is online

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Close Encounters, Displacement and War

We are delighted to announce that the second issue of the Close Encounters in War Journal has been published online. This issue marks the real start of our project and is devoted to a topic that seemed relevant to us both for its historical meaning and its topicality. In fact, the issue hosts five contributions by authors who consider the theme of close encounters, displacement and war from a great variety of angles and in different disciplines.

The Issue and single articles can be downloaded here: http://issue-n-2-(2019):-close-encounters,-displacement-and-war

Displacement and forced migration represent some of the most worrying issues of the contemporary world: according to data published by the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) there are currently 70.8 million forced migrants globally (Figures at a Glance, 2019) and its reports also show that wars, persecutions, violence and human rights violations are among the main causes of current forced migrations. The current crisis is unprecedented and calls for a deep reflection on how to face its urgency, particularly in relation to the situation of the people involved and the humanitarian emergency. In this special issue we look at displacement and forced migration caused by war and conflict in the contemporary era, with a particular focus on the challenges met by those who experienced it.

The five articles collected in the present issue cover a number of case-studies of displacement that vary as to geographical and chronological context, methodological approach, and specific disciplinary field, as far as they range from oral history to cultural history, and cultural studies.

The author of the first contribution, Christoph Declercq, focuses on the “odd case” of Belgian refugees in the United Kingdom during WW1, a small community of displaced people who were warmly welcomed and rather well absorbed in the British daily life, but who were soon after their repatriation forgotten. As Declercq claims, “the destitute Belgians had been used as a tool of warfare and when the war was finally over, those tools were hastily discarded, and all the stories that came with them suppressed” (infra, p. 14), which was one of the reasons why this group of displaced people remained so long forgotten by historians. Actually, as the author shows, the story of this group was more complex than a simple mass movement from Belgium to UK, and the figures of the mobility are therefore analysed thoroughly in order to understand what actual perception the Britons had of this phenomenon of displacement.

In the second article, Simona Tobia presents a number of case-studies deriving from oral history interviews that cover the displacement of Jewish Europeans fleeing from Nazi Germany to the United States before and during WW2, facing very challenging experiences of adaptation and integration. The author opens her article by discussing a number of methodological issues of oral history in order to theoretically frame her work and the use she makes of her sources. Tobia’s main concern is the emotional impact that displacement has on those who experience it, which often affects their ability to remember and share effectively the most traumatic aspects of their journey. She therefore claims that any oral history of displacement must take into account not only the cultural issues related to oral narrative but also the emotional impact of being displaced in terms of identity-building and memory, because “the strategies of memory composure that the narrators in these case studies used revolve around cultural knowledge, on the one hand, and emotions and feelings, on the other” (infra, p. 44).

The author of the third article, Barbara Krasner, touches upon another rather neglected scenario of displacement, namely that of Polish citizens who were caught between Hitler’s and Stalin’s regimes in 1939, when Poland was invaded by the Wehrmacht from the west and by the Red Army from the east. This form of displacement concerned above all the Jewish population of the town of Ostrova, who found themselves trapped between two invaders who equally threatened their survival. Thus, “the decision to cross or not cross the border in the first three months of Nazi and Soviet occupation of Poland had longer-term consequences for the Jews of Ostrova” (infra, p. 63), which reminds us that displacement is a multi-faceted phenomenon that can be very different from case to case. Displacement can turn itself into a deadly condition for those groups of people that for racial, ethnic, religious or political reasons are particularly exposed to persecution both in the place they flee from and in those they try to enter.

The fourth article by Elisheva Perelman takes us in Japan in 1945, when the country is occupied by the American troops and the encounter between the soldiers and the civilians gives birth to the need for normalizing gendered relationships between America and Japan. To cover this topic, Perelman chooses to focus on a well-known post-war product of American pop culture, i.e. the cartoon Babysan, first published in 1951 and depicting the regime of occupation in a palatable way, which means in a sexually hegemonized way. Babysan made thus an ideal ethnographic object through which the Americans could look at defeated and occupied Japan in terms of naivety and objectification. Perleman also shows that the experience of displacement can occur without being removed from one’s own place. Babysan depicts a culture that has been displaced by the very glance that the occupiers have cast on it. As a “symbol of occupation and subjugation, of racism and misogyny” (infra, p. 81), Babysan reveals much about the complex reality of displacement in war.

The fifth and last article considers a more recent scenario, i.e. the worldwide diaspora of Somali citizens in the wake of the Somali civil war. Natoschia Scruggs takes into account testimonies of Somali displaced people resident in the United States, some of whom, though, have had previous experience of displacement in Europe and other countries in Africa or the Middle East. Once again, this article shows that displacement triggers a long chain of identity-related issues in those who are involved, in particular for people coming from cultural milieus where “clan affiliation and one’s immediate family are significant sources of personal identity and security” (infra, p. 92). What emerges is that generalisation is not useful when one attempts to understand the impact of displacement on such aspects as identity-building, self-perception, or social relationships, which are largely dependent on the cultural milieu of origin.We wish to extend a warm thank you to all the people who work with us to realize this project: our Editorial Board, the many scholars who accept to act as peer reviewers, and all those who have supported our project with counsel, criticism and constructive dialogue. And above all, the contributors, who have allowed us the privilege to read and publish their excellent academic work.

Issue n. 1 of the Close Encounters in War Journal is online

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Issue n. 1: “Close Encounters in Irregular and Asymmetric War” (2018)

We are delighted to announce that the first issue of the Close Encounters in War Journal has been published online. This issue marks the real start of our project and is devoted to a topic that seemed relevant to us both for its historical meaning and its topicality. In fact, the issue hosts five contributions by authors who consider the theme of close encounters in irregular and asymmetric war from a great variety of angles and in different disciplines.

The Issue and individual articles can be downloaded at:

Issue n. 1 (2018): Close encounters in irregular and asymmetric war

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What today is referred to as “irregular warfare” is one of the most ancient types of conflict, as opposed to “conventional warfare”, which is a relatively more recent development. The combat strategies and tactics used by tribal warriors, modern guerrillas, resistance fighters and terrorists have been attracting the attention of military historians, strategists and intelligence experts, focusing on resistance, insurgency, counter-insurgency and more recently terrorism. Beside its practical efficacy on the battlefield, irregular war has always stirred popular imagination. But how do human beings experience this particular type of warfare? Does it seem more threatening and scary because it can involve civilians more deeply? Does it blur the traditional idea of war as open confrontation with a recognisable enemy?

The multidisciplinary collection of articles presented in this issue invites a reflection on irregular and asymmetric warfare that goes beyond military strategy and tactical effectiveness, and aims to examine this subject through the lens of “close encounters” in order to explore its impact on human experience. In this perspective, a few recurring elements emerge in all the seven articles: irregular warfare involves an unequal fight between unequal enemies. There is no balance of power and this asymmetry between adversaries means that lines get blurred, for example between combatants and non combatants, or between regular and irregular forces. Irregular and asymmetric warfare blurs the lines and rules of conflict, but it also resurfaces the agency of those who are invisible in war.

The first three articles in the collection are more factual and they explore the blurred identities and often divided loyalties of those involved in irregular conflicts. According to their authors, those who fight “from below”, often the less powerful, find agency.

Brad St. Croix explores asymmetric warfare within the context of a wide conflict, focusing on the Pacific theatre of the Second World War. In Hong Kong, the British had to fight an irregular force as they faced a Japanese-inspired fifth column. The author sees this as having a deeply destabilizing power for the British, even if blurring the lines between regular and irregular forces was a tactic often used by the Japanese. However, the interesting point that emerges from this analysis is that blurred lines and changing loyalties in this context were due to the multiethnic makeup of the colony. In the Battle of Hong Kong invisibility was key for the fifth columnists, who used hiding and disguise as well as tactics such as sniping to conceal their identities and destabilize the enemy. Their invisibility still represents a challenge for historians who want determine their numbers and identity.

María Gómez-Amich offers a study based on interviews with five former conflict zone interpreters who were locally recruited by the Spanish troops deployed in Afghanistan between 2003 and 2014 as part of the NATO ISAF mission. By looking at the narratives of these interviewees in the effort to analyse their agency, his study emphasizes many lines getting blurred, such as the line between east and west, foreign and local, military and civilian, but also those, perhaps less obvious, between trust and mistrust, loyalty and neutrality, which are the key ones for professional interpreters. In this context, locally recruited interpreters are given the role of gatekeepers thanks to their cultural capital and they experience blurred loyalties because they are often seen as traitors by their own group and as outsiders by their employers. Another important point in this analysis is that irregular warfare blurs the fundamental ethical principles of interpreting, as it accentuates the tension between neutrality and agency.

In his article Gian Marco Longoni looks at another contemporary example of irregular warfare: the Houthi insurgency begun in 2004 that ousted the Yemeni government in 2015. In his effort to examine the three reasons for the outcome of this insurgency, Longoni emphasizes once again the asymmetry of the conflict and the agency of the insurgents. They find agency through the use of violence and capitalize on the weakness of the Yemeni regime. But there are also other, more cultural reasons that can explain the outcome of the revolt: the Zaydi insurgents experienced a shared identity and shared narratives which can be dubbed as their cultural identity, which were keys in the context of this conflict. It seems that when cultural identity is not conflictual in itself, but clearly defined as in this instance, loyalty does not represent an issue. Asymmetry has a double impact here because while it is true that the fight is between unequal enemies, it is the insurgents who find strength in their cultural identity, whereas the regular forces are weak, dysfunctional and incapable of adequate counterinsurgency despite being the representatives of the institutions.

The second set of articles is more focused on meaning and representation. The concept of irregular and asymmetric warfare is interpreted in different ways, but both articles agree on one point: asymmetric conflict has the power to transform the individual, affecting the spheres of imagination, self-perception, and cultural reception. What these articles suggest is that asymmetric war almost always implies disequilibrium of forces and a polarisation of conflict as a struggle between “stronger” and “weaker” opponents, in particular women and children. By no accident, in fact, these articles explore the issue of close encounters in asymmetric war from the standpoint of its cultural interpretation and representation.

In her analysis of the rape scene in Elsa Morante’s novel La storia, Stefania Porcelli talks about a literary encounter with war. The author interprets the concept of asymmetry as lack of balance between the adversaries, who are fragile actors who never win against stronger enemies. In this analysis the lines between victim and oppressor, innocence and evil, become blurred, as the author stresses how Morante insists on the concept of power, and of how the powerful (represented by Gunther, stronger but doomed to succumb to history), become themselves victims. Fear, sometimes terror, is at the core of this particular asymmetric conflict, in which the victim is stripped of agency because rape “is an act of violence against a woman wholly bereft of agency” (Porcelli, p. 89). But here it also represents the loss of innocence that bears a transformative power.

Benjamin Nickl sees asymmetric conflict through the eyes of child warriors in popular fiction. In his analysis of the representation of children in arms Nickl wonders whether they are a way to represent and give meaning to the trauma of war. Child characters invite a shift in the point of view on war, which can lead to a more genuine approach, as “audiences seem willing to suspend their disbelief readily” (Nickl, p. 104) when the narrator is a child. Nickl interprets the concept of irregular and asymmetric warfare very widely, including fictional conflicts against terrible monsters or evil warlords, but what these all have in common is that they all involve a shift in the point of view and the transformational loss of innocence as consequences of the trauma caused by war.

The selected articles range over a number of wars, different from one another in time, space, scale, and context; and their authors consider the topic of “close encounters in irregular and asymmetric war” from the standpoints of different disciplines and methodological approaches, among which, for example, cultural and military history, literary studies, gender studies, oral history, translation studies, and postcolonial studies. This variety reflects the multidisciplinary project of Close Encounters in War journal and will hopefully fuel further interest in the cultural and collateral aspects of war as a fundamental aspect of human evolution and cultural specificity. Irregular and asymmetric warfare blurs the lines and rules of conflict, but it also resurfaces the agency of those who are invisible in war.