Drone doctrine replaces counterinsurgency’s population politics with terror-and-eradication yield

Evidence

What we are witnessing here is a redistribution of priorities: the yield from a policy designed to terrorize and eradicate now takes precedence over any consideration of its political effects on the population. So what if the drones make the population turn away from us? Who cares? What do the “hearts and minds” of villagers in Waziristan or anywhere else matter? And in any case, unlike in the old colonial wars, the objective is no longer to conquer a territory but simply to eliminate from afar the “terrorist threat.” — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 286

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s interest in ‘neither war nor peace’ norms — the abandonment of hearts-and-minds echoes the moral/political transformation of combat the reader is tracking. — connects to: Air Force strategists redefined counterinsurgency around airpower and drones. — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 257; Drone strategy accepts enemy recruitment because strikes can outpace it — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 287; Failed counterinsurgency forced Obama back to counterterrorism and drone warfare — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 432

Related

• Air Force strategists redefined counterinsurgency around airpower and drones. (similarity 0.89)
• Counterinsurgency doctrine marginalized airpower for strategic rather than moral reasons. (similarity 0.84)
• Failed counterinsurgency forced Obama back to counterterrorism and drone warfare (similarity 0.84)
• Drone strategy accepts enemy recruitment because strikes can outpace it (similarity 0.83)
• Drones resolve the guerrilla problem by depriving insurgents of any target to attack. (similarity 0.83)
• The drone reconciles liberal security statehood with unrestricted waging of war. (similarity 0.82)
• Drone strikes amount tactically to the state’s version of insurgent bomb attacks. (similarity 0.82)
• Drone warfare creates a new ethical-political norm neither war nor peace (similarity 0.81)
• Counterinsurgency is politico-military while antiterrorism is policing-oriented. (similarity 0.81)
• Drone warfare creates a new configuration that is neither war nor peace (similarity 0.81)
• Drone war turns strategic evaluation into disconnected body counts. (similarity 0.81)
• The Afghanistan war instantly validated drones as central to future US military strategy. (similarity 0.81)
• Drone use lowers the threshold so violence becomes the default foreign policy option. (similarity 0.81)
• Eliminating reciprocal exposure to violence makes drones look like cowardly weapons. (similarity 0.80)
• Armed drones reshape sovereignty over a state’s own subjects, not just enemies (similarity 0.80)

Broader Connections

• Failed counterinsurgency forced Obama back to counterterrorism and drone warfare #expands (0.75) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 432
• Drone strategy accepts enemy recruitment because strikes can outpace it #expands (0.60) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 287