Holding weapons of mass destruction constitutes declared readiness to inflict cruel death on civilians

Evidence

One might add to this that the manufacture, possession, and deployment of weapons of mass destruction (chemical, biological, and nuclear) must be counted as instances of declared governmental readiness to inflict cruel death upon civilian populations even when these weapons are not actually used. In brief, cruel modern technologies of destruction are integral to modern warfare, and modern warfare is an activity essential to the security and power of the modern state, on which the welfare and identity of its citizens depends. In war, the modern state demands from its citizens not only that they kill and maim others but also that they themselves suffer cruel pain and death. Human life is sacred, but only in particular contexts that the state defines. — Talal Asad, Formations of the Secular, 572

Categorization

• QUESTION: The closing line — ‘Human life is sacred, but only in particular contexts that the state defines’ — is a compression worth unpacking: what exactly is the argument that this is not mere moralizing but an internal paradox of state sovereignty?
• XREF: Connects to We (Zamyatin) and the state’s absolute authority over the citizen’s body and death — same question of sovereign power over life.
• DEEPTHINKING: The claim that possessing WMDs is itself an instance of declared cruelty, plus the paradox that sacredness of life is state-defined — this compresses an entire theory of sovereignty and biopolitics into two sentences.