Etienne Balibar is professor in Paris X Nanterre and University of California, Irvine. He was invited to participate in the first edition of the Dictionary of War but unfortunately could not make it to Frankfurt. Instead he has sent us as his contribution an essay entitled: "Politics As War, War As Politics - Post-Clausewitzian Variations". It is the text of a public lecture he gave at the Alice Berline Kaplan Center for the Humanities, Northwestern University, Evanston, on May 8, 2006.

The new war, post-modern war, permanent war -- almost every major military operation over the past 15 years has evoked a new debate about the new character of war. After 9-11 state of war has turned into a normality. Five years of global war have turned the world upside down, in a way that the extent of the ongoing changes cannot be fully conceived yet.

On June 2 and 3 the first edition of DICTIONARY OF WAR will take place as a collaborative platform for creating concepts on the issue of war. At four public, two-day events in Frankfurt, Munich, Graz and Berlin 100 concepts will be invented, arranged and presented by scientists, artists, theorists and activists.