Cluster Bombs and War Metals: Reforming U.S. Cold War Debris in Laos

Abstract

ABSTRACT This essay focuses on cluster bombs and war metals, and links militarism, war, and violence to how people continue to experience the legacies of the Cold War. I ask the following questions: How might the collateralization and legacy of military violence serve to illuminate a dimension of the Cold War as ongoing? What does it mean to engage with the Cold War and the different forms of entanglements and violence that persist in the present? By examining cluster bombs and war metals, I argue these material objects make visible the militarized context of America’s ongoing presence in Laos.