In this way a limited number of instances are seen as products of legitimate conduct of war. The remainder are written off as illegitimate consequences of the actions of barbarians or vandals. Understanding acts of destruction as vandalism or as the barbaric ‘wanton destruction of cities, towns or villages’ (Statute of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia cited in Roberts and Guelff 2000, 569) is thus the recto of the verso of concepts of collateral damage and military necessity.

On the one hand, the rubble of the Stari Most was a sign with an assumed connotation that could be substituted for a comprehensive understanding of the conflict. On the other hand, this sign precipitated, solidified, or gave expression to, certain conceptual formations that framed the horizons of the political imaginaries of both participants and observers. As such then, this sign, and its interpretation, influenced courses of action taken by those whose political imaginaries it both shaped and expressed.

Thus, in seeing the destruction of built environments as instances of ‘wanton destruction’, the targeting of buildings is seen merely as a criminal deviation from the norm. In this way such accounts resist the urgent need to inquire into the meaning of such destruction, refusing to see such destruction as following a distinct rationale or logic. 1 What logic or rationale do such acts of ‘wanton’ destruction disclose? My argument would be that in order to pursue this question, ‘wanton destruction’ would be more productively understood as ‘urbicide’.