The enemy is a vagabond essence with no fixed determination

Evidence

Deleuze and Guattari spend very little time on the enemy, yet through their analysis of the “war machine” they contribute much to an understanding of what I have been calling, after their manner, the “becoming-enemy.” Earlier, for example, Deleuze and Guattari identify something like a permanent feature of this “matter-movement, this matter-energy, this matter-flow, this matter in variation that enters assemblages and leaves them,” a “region of vague and material essences (in other words, essences that are vagabond, anexact and yet rigorous)” (407) which begins to describe the enemy. Thus, the enemy “is assumed to have no other determination [than being the target of war], with no political, economic, or social considerations entering in” (420). — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab, 1021

Categorization

• DEFINE: The enemy defined via Deleuze-Guattari as anexact, vagabond essence — a working definition feeding the book’s genealogical project.