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Mortal Friends, Best Enemies: German-Russian Cooperation after the Cold War. By Wallander Celeste A.. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999. 229p. $49.95 cloth, $19.95 paper.

tual, analytical, and discursive boundaries, it lays the groundwork for an alternative, ethnographic approach to security studies. Shapiro's premise is that there can be two approaches to security studies. The conventional one takes its cue from Clausewitz and views the use of violence as a purposeful instrument of state policy. This approach has largely lodged within what is called a realist theory of power and state action. Shapiro advances an alternative ethnographic or "ontological" approach, however, which seeks "to attenuate identity commitments by reflecting on the boundary practices and history-making narratives by which they are shaped" (p. 138). Drawing on Hegelian-Freudian-Lacanian theories of subjectivity, Shapiro argues that violence and the use of force are instruments of identity construction. According to these theories, self and identity, whether in the construction of the ego or the construction of the superego of the social collectivity, are an interactive social process. Interestingly, and correctly in my view, Shapiro does not identify with the fashionable symbolic interactionist theories of the self; rather, he delves deeper into the complex but rewarding world of Lacanian theory and is able to advance a dynamic theory of encounter. The process is violent, or can be, to the extent that the construction of the other as a threat is always a construction of a binary opposition between two equally constructed "selfs." The violence that accompanies a particular representation of the other, therefore, has meanings that go much deeper than security studies acknowledges. Violence is lodged within an expression of an economy of representation. The cartography of modern violence tells us something very important about the broader relationships between the use of violence and collective and individual identities. It renders political economy as a cartographic pursuit: denning social bodies and boundaries and assigning meaning to these bodies as enemies, foes, and friends. In that sense, security studies is not a separate field of investigation. On the contrary, Shapiro sees an important link between the naturalizing perception of territory that is presented as given in conventional discourse, "the commercial instinct," and the specific modes of modern violence. In the final analysis, a holistic political economy emerges that brings together theories of capitalism, modes of war, and collective identities. This theoretical framework allows Shapiro to narrate a history of modern violence in a novel way. The manner and technologies of constructing self and other (and the other way around) undergo change. The digitalization or derealization of the enemy, mediated through modern technologies, has wider and deeper effects on the construction of national or collective identities. There is no implicit or explicit causality. Shapiro does not argue that the digitalization of war causes the dispersion of modern identities, but within that it is part and parcel of it. All this is good, interesting, and certainly worth dwelling upon, but it is not entirely novel. Shapiro's true contribution perhaps lies elsewhere. Rather than insist on the gap dividing the two traditions of security studies, Shapiro shows convincingly that the ontological tradition has always existed, underpinned and informed although unrecognized by the first. This is a shrewd move. To begin with, it allows Shapiro to advance a "proper reading" of Clausewitz as an important contributor to the ethnographic tradition. For Clausewitz, war is an instrument of state policy, no doubt, but it is viewed as an instrument of the state, itself attributed the trappings of a personality and individuality. So war and violence are forms of engagement in which the collective self defines its historical purpose. Hegel was very explicit about this aspect of war making, but by insisting on the pervasive nature of the ethnographic theme, Shapiro is able to subvert not only the founding fathers of strategic security studies but also, and more important, their contemporary sons and daughters. Under close scrutiny, the role played by, say, General Schwartzkopf during and after the Gulf War and analysis of some "conventional" if enthusiastic supporters of U.S. policy reveal clearly ethnographic concerns with symbolic action and collective identity. In Shapiro's skillful hands, the very thing that conventional security studies tries to forget comes back to haunt it. Yet, the book fails in its final and most ambitious if unstated aim. All maps are constructed, attaching meaning to places and boundaries in a particular manner. Conventional geopolitical maps are replaced by a different cartography that maps out a constructed violent space. But why these particular violent cartographies of the late twentieth century? An outline is sketched out here, a few notes are added, but ultimately the picture remains fuzzy and uncertain. Some readers may take exception to the style and structure of this book. In the current climate of "scientific" approaches to political science, Shapiro's collage of readings, his discursive if accessible style, and his eclectic yet rigorous use of diverse literature do not intimate to the reader either the true purpose of his project or the limitation of his undertaking. But then the discursive style gets the better of him, and the book is rather repetitive toward the end. Bearing in mind these shortcomings, Violent Cartographies is a fascinating, beautifully written, and unquestionably important contribution.