Drone technology structurally rules out existing trauma diagnoses.

Evidence

Closer to our own times, the psychologist Rachel McNair has suggested expanding the overly narrow notion of PTSD by defining a condition called “Perpetration-Induced Traumatic Stress” (PITS). Noting that recent literature has focused almost exclusively on the traumas inflicted on passive victims by external forces, she tries to isolate the active component of the anxiety, the one that stems from the fact of having been the agent of violence, in fact a perpetrator of it. Within the mixed experience of a soldier, it is hard to sort out one particular element from the rest, but McNair studies cases of pure perpetration, for example the nightmares of executioners haunted by images of the last moments of their condemned prisoners. She does not cite the case of drone operators, as her book was published too early for that, but it looks as if that might be a good means by which to test out her idea, for it presents a case of pure perpetration, armed violence reduced solely to its active aspect and without any vital threat to its perpetrator. — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 389 (#contradicts, via linked claim)

We are thus faced, for the moment, with two hypotheses regarding the psychic life of drone operators: either this weaponry creates insensitive killers, or else it produces a mental process that involves being tormented by guilt, potentially to the degree of inducing neurosis. In practice, the truth about any given individual probably falls somewhere between those two poles. — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 391 (#contradicts, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Drone psychopathology lies in produced compartmentalization, not operator trauma — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 427; The media narrative of traumatized drone pilots has no empirical basis.; A diagnosis of perpetration-induced stress is needed for drone operators. (+3 more)

Related

• A diagnosis of perpetration-induced stress is needed for drone operators. (similarity 0.97)
• Drone operations constitute a pure case of perpetration-induced traumatic stress. (similarity 0.95)
• Drone psychopathology lies in produced compartmentalization, not operator trauma (similarity 0.90)
• The media narrative of traumatized drone pilots has no empirical basis. (similarity 0.89)
• The psychological effect of drone killing on operators remains empirically unresolved. (similarity 0.87)
• Media accounts of drone pilot trauma lack corroborating evidence (similarity 0.87)
• Assumed drone-operator trauma serves to legitimize them as real soldiers (similarity 0.86)
• Media emphasis on drone pilot trauma legitimizes them as classic soldiers (similarity 0.83)
• Drone technology produces a combined morale-buffering effect on operators (similarity 0.81)
• A few hundred drone operators’ moral feelings can be dismissed as irrelevant (similarity 0.79)
• dronization of soldiers was a precondition for the pure drone (similarity 0.78)
• A drone operator killed more people than he thought himself capable of (similarity 0.78)
• Drones create a crisis in military ethos by contradicting traditional warrior values. (similarity 0.78)

Broader Connections

• Drone operations constitute a pure case of perpetration-induced traumatic stress. #contradicts (0.75) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 389
• The psychological effect of drone killing on operators remains empirically unresolved. #contradicts (0.60) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 391