Playing discreet war in the US: Negotiating subjecthood and sovereignty through Special Forces video games

This article examines the War on Terror and US response strategies of discreet war through the lens of the Special Forces video game as a site of contestation between the real and the imaginary world, the nation-state and market-state, the West and the Rest. While mainstream films and news media increasingly pay homage to discreet war, the author argues that the Special Forces shooter goes a step further, by providing a participatory middle ground that seeks to naturalize and legitimize covert force solutions as acceptable instruments of statecraft. Thus, the intention of this article is to analyze the various ways in which the aesthetics and politics of the Special Forces shooter organizes, structures, and legitimates frameworks of subjecthood and sovereignty.