Paper short abstract:

Soldiers in Afghanistan take risks as soon as they are on the battlefield. One of the main characteristics at war is uncertainty. How commanders (captain and lieutenant) cope with it? My presentation focus on indigenous technologies designed to anticipate the catastrophic potential of each mission.

Paper long abstract:

As Clausewitz demonstrated, two of the central principles of war are "frictions" and "war fog". They are both sides of the same characteristic: the uncertainty that soldiers have to deal with every day. In my research, the term "uncertainty" means the radical impossibility of predicting future. I take as case study infantry's commanders. Paradoxically, commanders have to take into account what they can't predict. In order to protect and insure the safety of their troops, they developed new tools to reduce the uncertainty, as the digitalization of the battle space. But such innovations cannot solve many of the practical issues for military actors. In this presentation, I will explore the indigenous technologies used by the French infantry's commanders in order to cope with uncertainty. There are multiple dimensions in the military work of planning uncertainty: preventing friendly fire, anticipating where the enemy could be located and thinking about what he could do, looking for possible unexpected situations. Although commanders have new tools in order to anticipate enemy's positions and his probable actions, they cannot reach the certainty. These tools go through a first step called the "dialogue interarme", then the "back brief" and finally the "rehearsal". During these three steps, the mission will be constructed with different participants who share their expertise. This process is a kind of ritual with, on the one hand, real effects and on the other hand, a limit of performativity. It does not guarantee the success of the mission, but this social activity is necessary for preventing a bigger catastrophe.