Pierre Conesa’s La Fabrication de l’Ennemi Arabic edition, translated by Nabil Ajjan and published by the ACRPS, explores the reasons impelling states, along with all of their intelligence agencies, research and strategic planning institutes, and decision-makers, to construct an enemy. Conesa takes up an analysis of those who share responsibility for the creation of enemies, and the role played by politicians and intellectuals in defining who these enemies are. The author than proceeds to propose a classification of types of enemies ranging from border enemies, interplanetary rivals, intimate enemies (in civil wars, according to the author), hidden enemies (linked to conspiracy theory) to conceptual enemies, media enemies, hereditary enemies and so forth. In this engaging analysis, Conesa triggers a number of interesting questions, such as: Can one live without an enemy? How can human beings deconstruct the enemy at national and international levels? And what specific types of conflicts can be defused, as a result of this deconstruction?

Author Pierre Conesa is a French academic, researcher and diplomat who has served as Deputy Director of the French Ministry of Defense’s Commission on Strategic Affairs. Currently a Professorat the Institute of Political Science, his other published works include Guide du paradis: “Publicité comparée des Au-delà” (2004), and “Les Mécaniques du chaos: bushisme, prolifération et terrorism” (2007). Translator and researcher Nabil Ajjan is from Syria studied at the University of Damascus and at Lyon II University, obtaining a doctorate in modern French literature. Among his translations is “Between Islam and the West: a Dialogue with Gerard D. Khoury” (released in 2000).