New psychological approach to war rests on selective reading of history

Over the past decade, as themes of victimhood, resilience, and masculinity have become re-politicized in the West, a new psychological approach to war and its aftermath has emerged in the United States military. This is a “positive” psychology of war, that foregrounds the strength, rather than the vulnerability of human beings, and that accentuates the ennobling rather than the traumatic effects of violence.

Senior researcher Johannes Lang explores how this new military psychology grew out of a conservative critique of victimhood that challenges liberal perceptions of war as something inherently traumatic and seeks to rediscover the transformative potential in suffering and sacrifice.

The chapter appears in Geopolitical Amnesia: The Rise of the Right and the Crisis of Liberal Memory, edited by Vibeke Schou Tjalve. Lang’s research is part of an ongoing project titled The New Psychology of War, funded by the Independent Research Fund Denmark.