Losing Hope in the Operation of Systematic Power by the Armed Forces

Currently, the law of the Armed Forces has not yet gone through a process of ‘humanization’ of its regime – or by Michel Foucault’s definition, a system of calculated, defined, refined and reformed discipline. The regime assumes that the arbitration of punishment and discipline can effectively deter prospective military crime and thereby improve obedience. When we investigate this ‘divine’ law of the military, we find arbitration everywhere implicit in all its directives and operations. This is all so much so that the operation of power of the armed forces has only become a mere display of amusement for the public rather than an effective systematic force against external forces.

Any soldier can only plainly see a culture of internal conflict. Thus, he understands that when an operation of power is divided against itself through itself, the whole force becomes weak and ceases to be any kind of operation at all. He observes and is aware of the Act put in place, and that it permits arbitration of punishment at all levels, such that no systematic operation of power is in place. So, when punitive operations are not properly reflected in the level of severity to its crime, even the condemned cannot see the relevance of the discipline involved. And since discipline has not evolved an implicit but calculated reflection against the purported crime, the condemned and the public both ultimately see the law as illegitimate. However, since the Armed Forces are directly involved with society via conscription, the Law of the Forces becomes a law useless and ineffective.

There seems to be no calculation, no consideration, of a proper systemization of the law and its power over soldiers. So implementation becomes arbitrary and deterrence becomes meaningless and of no value at all. What of the Armed Forces do we have if its people do not respect it? It becomes a norm through society, through conscripting soldiers, but by also the normality of despising the law, the norm of conscriptions forms an empty pact between society and the sovereign power. Arbitration sets the foundation of the Armed Forces, and so with the law of conscription imposed by the Sovereign power, arbitration and normality become associated and are as one. And since it is meaningless, the law being also arbitrary, the Sovereign power too becomes arbitrary and meaningless.

If I were not wrong, Jean Jacque once commented that the power of the Sovereign diminishes to a mere display of operation of power only when society sees the sovereign to be useless. A matured society can only observe the relentless perseverance of the useless power over its people and, by its mere perseverance, is amused by the existence of it at all. Rather than the role of government, sovereignty is like a sidekick, spontaneously acting and improvising upon itself without apparent goals and ideals, like a shadow behind the individual who beholds it.

Propaganda of its effectiveness thus only assumes the stupidity of its people. Yet, they ask why people of talent usually become unpatriotic and leave the nation for another, without realizing that society has matured beyond its undertaking. So here we see a prime example of the Sovereign pursuing an effective means under its principle of arbitration, only to pursue empty dreams. Improvisation becomes arbitrary in itself and no meaning can ever become attached to itself. It was as if anarchy was the best solution t this all…