Combatant status is unascertainable when enemies wear no uniforms and all carry weapons

Evidence

When, as is the case today in the context of anti-insurgent operations, drone operators target enemies without uniforms (and often beyond the zones of armed conflict), the status of combatant can no longer be ascertained by any distinctive conventional sign. As for carrying weapons, that criterion cannot be applied in a country where everybody carries a weapon. As a Yemeni official comments, “Every Yemeni is armed … so how can they differentiate between suspected militants and armed Yemenis?” — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 477

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s interest in how drones transform the ‘psychic, moral, physical space’ — the destruction of the conventional sign-system of war. — connects to: Weaponless insurgents compensated with ruses and improvised armor; Combatant status dilates to cover membership, collaboration, and presumed sympathy — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 481; Law that excludes adversaries from fighting fails to restrain their violence — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 1040

Related

• Combatant status dilates to cover membership, collaboration, and presumed sympathy (similarity 0.82)
• Drone surveillance cannot reliably distinguish combatants from civilians (similarity 0.81)
• Drones abolish the condition of combat that makes combatants identifiable. (similarity 0.81)
• Drones are nondiscriminatory because excluding combat erases the combatant-noncombatant distinction. (similarity 0.80)
• Drones resolve the guerrilla problem by depriving insurgents of any target to attack. (similarity 0.80)
• Drone warfare creates a new configuration that is neither war nor peace (similarity 0.78)
• Outlawed combatants lose all incentive to obey war’s rules (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Combatant status dilates to cover membership, collaboration, and presumed sympathy #qualifies (0.65) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 481
• Weaponless insurgents compensated with ruses and improvised armor #complicates (0.60)
• Law that excludes adversaries from fighting fails to restrain their violence #corroborates (0.60) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 1040