Accepted zero-risk killing would collapse just war theory

Evidence

But the offensive is also and perhaps above all pushing into the field of legal theory. “Warfare without risk,” in which the drone is probably the most effective instrument, critically undermines the meta-legal principles that underpin the right to kill in war. Against a background of fundamental destabilization such as this, formulas for redefining a sovereign power over life and death are being introduced. The aim is to accommodate the right to “targeted assassination” even if, in the process, the rights typically associated with being in armed conflict go up in smoke. — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 128 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: No word exists for killing without any risk of being killed; Some advocates propose a new legal regime of unconstrained lethal self-defense; Zero-risk warfare implies radical inequality in the value of lives (+11 more)

Related

• Risk-free warfare erodes the legal principles justifying the right to kill in war. (similarity 0.92)
• Zero-risk warfare implies radical inequality in the value of lives (similarity 0.92)
• Radical protection from death transforms war into one-sided slaughter or hunting (similarity 0.88)
• Remote killing free from retaliation creates a moral hazard problem (similarity 0.87)
• Just-cause theorists grant only the just warrior the right to kill (similarity 0.87)
• The drone made warfare absolutely unilateral, killing without risk of being killed (similarity 0.85)
• Unilateral drone killing makes the legal right to kill merely formal. (similarity 0.85)
• Some advocates propose a new legal regime of unconstrained lethal self-defense (similarity 0.85)
• Just-war theorists reject prioritizing own soldiers’ safety over enemy civilians’ safety. (similarity 0.84)
• A legal hybrid of war and policing grants a global license to kill (similarity 0.83)
• Drone-weaponized remote control radicalizes war into one-sided killing from safe zones (similarity 0.83)
• Global war on terror is better understood as manhunting than combat (similarity 0.83)
• Outlawed combatants lose all incentive to obey war’s rules (similarity 0.82)
• Drone warfare leaves the mutual right to kill formally intact but substantively empty. (similarity 0.82)
• Remote killing removes reciprocal constraints that traditionally shaped warrior morality. (similarity 0.81)

Broader Connections

• Power loses its ordering function if anyone can resort to violence freely #expands (0.82)
• Risk-free warfare erodes the legal principles justifying the right to kill in war. #expands (0.80) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 128
• Remote killing free from retaliation creates a moral hazard problem #expands (0.75)
• Radical protection from death transforms war into one-sided slaughter or hunting #expands (0.70)
• Unilateral drone warfare collapses war into a one-sided putting-to-death #expands (0.70)
• Drone warfare is a war without losses and without victory #exemplifies (0.70)
• Externalizing war risks makes violence the default policy option #expands (0.65)
• Extreme asymmetry in vulnerability transforms war into hunting or slaughter #expands (0.65) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 332
• Zero-risk warfare implies radical inequality in the value of lives #expands (0.60)
• Global war on terror is better understood as manhunting than combat #expands (0.55)