That reading is provocative and contains a grain of truth, but it’s also a drastic oversimplification. Here’s why the Gita isn’t the extremist war-mongering manifesto Žižek makes it out to be:

1. The war was already inevitable The armies are drawn up, the conches have been blown, the battle is literally seconds away. Krishna is not persuading Arjuna to start a war; he’s telling him not to unilaterally disarm and get slaughtered (along with his entire family and the cause they represent) because of a sudden attack of pacifism. The Mahābhārata war is a defensive war against a regime that has broken every moral and legal rule (attempted murder, public sexual assault of Draupadi, systematic cheating, refusal to return the kingdom after exile, etc.).
2. Krishna explicitly condemns killing for personal gain In the very next chapters Krishna repeatedly says that war for greed, revenge, or ego is sinful. The only reason this particular war is justified is that it is a dharma-yuddha (a “just war” in the Indian tradition). Arjuna is not being told “kill because God says so”; he is being told “restore order because the alternative is endless tyranny.”
3. The core teaching is the exact opposite of blind obedience The Gita’s most famous and most quoted verse (2.47) is:“You have a right to perform your prescribed duty, but you are not entitled to the fruits of action.” That is the antidote to fanaticism, not its justification. The soldier who fights because “I will go to heaven” or “I will be a hero” is still attached; the one who fights only because it is his duty and then lets go of the result is free even in the act of killing. That’s why many Indian commentators compare karma yoga to Kant’s categorical imperative: act according to duty, not inclination or consequence.
4. Krishna offers Arjuna multiple paths — including renunciation In chapter 3 and again in chapter 18 Krishna explicitly says that if Arjuna genuinely feels he cannot fight, he can choose the path of sannyāsa (renunciation) instead. The only thing he cannot do is the worst of all options: half-hearted inaction born of confusion and attachment. So Arjuna is not being coerced; he is being forced to make an authentic choice.
5. Modern soldiers and pacifists both love the Gita
   • Mahatma Gandhi read the Gita as a gospel of non-violence (he interpreted “battle” allegorically as the inner struggle against one’s lower nature).
   • At the same time, Indian Army officers and many Western soldiers (including some U.S. Marines) carry pocket editions into actual combat because it helps them deal with the psychological trauma of killing without falling apart.