The Military Violence of White Phosphorus: Geopower, Weathering, Inhabitability

Abstract

White phosphorus munitions are known to produce significant thermal effects, burning bodies and scorching lands in multiple contexts of military violence (e.g., in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria). It is less widely discussed that white phosphorus munitions also drift into urban areas and farmlands; they deplete ecosystems and damage agricultural products, causing long-term toxifying effects for both human and nonhuman life. This article attends to accounts of such effects with the objective of understanding the extended temporal and spatial military violence of white phosphorus munitions. We first provide a history of the development of white phosphorus for military use before focusing on Israel’s recent deployment of white phosphorus munitions in southern Lebanon, where farmers and residents report enduring effects on health and the environment. Drawing on notions of geopower and weathering, we examine the temporalizing and spatializing dimensions of environmental harm to substantiate the article’s main argument: White phosphorus munitions effect enduring and dispersed forms and volumes of military violence by operating at the threshold of land and air—geos and meteora—to modulate inhabitability.