As a project of transnational militarism, the deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense System (THAAD) in South Korea demonstrates the invisible working of race and class hierarchies through othering North Korea as the “red enemy” and imposing the unequal burden of hosting the missile defense system on lower-class marginalized rural communities.
Race and racism, empire, and slavery are foundations of the European- and American-led contemporary world order, as demonstrated by the transatlantic slave trade, racist views held by Western philosophers, and the “standard of civilization” principle.
In Afghanistan, some women from “liberal democracies” report experiencing a “third gender”—whereby, if they act as equals to their male counterparts, they “are masculinized, and not real women but something else,” providing them with a measure of freedom and access in this context.
Liberal democracies often justify their reliance on military force as necessary to maintaining freedom, as well as frame security threats in terms of the dangers posed to the everyday lives of regular people, such that individuals will be willing to give up some freedom for personal security.