shock and awe
Language: English
Part of speech: verb
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈʃɒk(ə)nd ˈɔː/
ipa: /ˈʃɑk(ə)nd ˈɔ/
ipa: /ˈʃɑk(ə)nd ˈɑ/
rhymes: -ɔː
Forms: form: shocks and awes
form: shocking and awing
form: shocking and aweing
form: shocked and awed
form: shocked and awed
Etymology: Coined by American defence strategists Harlan Kenneth Ullman (born 1941) and James P. Wade, Jr., in Shock and Awe (1996): see the quotation. The term gained greater public attention during the 2003 invasion of Iraq by US troops.
Senses: examples: text: He was a young soldier still in the great battle of life, not used to see his fellow-combatants drop down by his side; and he felt shocked and awed.
ref: [1877, Julia Kavanagh, chapter XXVII, in Two Lilies. A Novel, New York, N.Y.: D. Appleton & Company, 549 & 551 Broadway, →OCLC, page 261:
text: That's why good strategists know when to stop shocking and awing: when to begin consolidating the benefits these strategies have provided. The classic example is Otto von Bismarck, who set new standards for shock and awe by provoking three wars—against Denmark in 1864, Austria in 1866, and France in 1870—all with a view to clearing the way for the unification of Germany.
ref: 2004, John Lewis Gaddis, “The Twenty-first Century”, in Surprise, Security, and the American Experience (Joanna Jackson Goldman Memorial Lecture on American Civilization and Government), Cambridge, Mass.; London: Harvard University Press, →ISBN, pages 101–102:
text: It was one thing to hear talk of protests and war resistance back home, but when I saw it first hand, just a few feet from my bed, I was shocked and awed by the seriousness of some of the guys who had decided not to participate in this war anymore.
ref: 2004 March, Tony Lawless, “‘Underground’ Bunker”, in Lawless in Vietnam: A Personal Accounting of My War, Haverford, Pa.: Infinity Publishing, →ISBN, page 239:
text: [H]e descends into ferrying drugs carefully planted in carcasses from an abattoir, and is eventually trained to be a killer. The violence, when it comes, shocks and awes because the beauty of the preceding scenes has had a hypnotic hold on the viewer.
ref: 2005, Lloyd Hughes, The Rough Guide to Gangster Movies (Rough Guides Reference), London: Rough Guides, →ISBN, page 93:
text: The wars in Afghanistan and Iran are both fought in defense of the manliness of "America." […] President [George W.] Bush is reelected on a platform of never changing his mind, never reconsidering a decision once taken, and never worrying about what others might think or feel in relation to U.S. actions globally. Since this model of national sovereignty in the face of a foreign threat leaves little room for worrying about individual lives at home, victims of national disasters are subjected to an unimaginably callous carelessness. And the events in nature that shock and awe the senses are used as excuses for doing away with those minimal environmental protections that still constrain the fossil fuel industry.
ref: 2006, Bonnie Mann, “Conclusion”, in Women’s Liberation and the Sublime: Feminism, Postmodernism, Environment, New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 176:
text: [M]ost weapon sounds (gun reports, rockets in flight, detonations, etc.) are not just big but absolutely vast, commanding attention, intimidating, shocking and aweing large populations dispersed over large areas.
ref: 2015, J. Martin Daughtry, “Sonic Campaigns”, in Listening to War: Sound, Music, Trauma, and Survival in Wartime Iraq, New York, N.Y.: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, section II (Structures of Listening, Sounding, and Emplacement), page 161:
topics: government
military
politics
war
glosses: To use the "shock and awe" doctrine in an actual or potential conflict, or to otherwise use a spectacular display of force or authority.