War talk as strategic ontology: Lessons from the Assyria–Judah conflict of 701 BCE

Abstract

‘War talk’, the claims antagonists and others make about wars and other forms of conflict, communicates contested ideas about why a war is being fought, who the antagonists are, and the moral standing of claims. Actors provide strategic narratives that jostle for control of the ‘correct’ ontological representation, explanation, and justification of events. The process mirrors the effects of meso-level negotiations on scientific ontologies, as described by Lerner and O’Loughlin in their article, ‘Strategic ontologies: Narrative and meso-level theorizing in international politics’, International Studies Quarterly (2023(3)). When adversaries make claims about a conflict, they seek to ‘[recast] subjects, objects, and relationships that constitute the international system in real-time, according to positionally determined priorities’ (p. 2). By doing so, they exercise what Barnett and Duvall refer to as ‘productive power’ in their article, ‘Power in international politics’, International Organization (2005(1)). This article extends Lerner and O’Loughlin’s (2023) concept of strategic ontologies by applying the theory to a hostile case and by introducing an analytical framework for assessing how actors control flows of information to manipulate strategic ontologies. The article applies this framework to the ‘Jerusalem War Talk’, the Biblical story about the confrontation between representatives of Assyria and Judah in 701 BCE when King Sennacherib’s army encamped outside the walls of King Hezekiah’s Jerusalem, and to the mention of this confrontation in the Annals of Sennacherib.