The Bio-Zoopolitics of U.S. Military Working Dog Policy in the U.S. “War on Terror”

Abstract

This paper analyzes the differential positioning of military working dogs in U.S. militarypolicy with particular attention to the period from 2000-2023, during which, among other shifts, thesedogs were reclassified within U.S. law and military code from “expendable equipment” to “militaryanimals.” This time also aligns with the time of the U.S. “war on terror.”1 The paper draws on feministand postcolonial animal studies to consider the larger cultural contexts under which these shiftsemerged, particularly within the biopolitical and racialized contexts of this war. Considering the culturalcontexts of these legislative shifts helps illuminate the biopolitical and zoopolitical entanglements ofanimality, nationalism, and war in determining how military working dogs gain a certain limited “rightto life” through U.S. military policy within the racialized sacrificial economies of this war