Drone war’s core task shifted from destroying enemies to finding and tracking them

Evidence

While warfare is defined, in the last analysis, by combat, hunting is essentially defined by pursuit. Two distinct types of geography correspond to the two activities. Combat bursts out wherever opposing forces clash. Hunting, on the other hand, takes place wherever the prey goes. As a hunter-state sees it, armed violence is no longer defined within the boundaries of a demarcated zone but simply by the presence of an enemy-prey who, so to speak, carries with it its own little mobile zone of hostility. — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 230 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

This work will focus on the case of armed flying drones, the ones that are known as “hunter-killers” and used in the attacks regularly reported by the press. Their history is that of an eye turned into a weapon. “We’ve moved from using UAVs primarily in intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance roles before Operation Iraqi Freedom,” said a U.S. Air Force general, “to a true hunter-killer role with the Reaper”—a name that “captures the lethal nature of this new weapon system.” The best definition of drones is probably the following: “flying, high-resolution video cameras armed with missiles.” — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 108 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

As Kenneth Anderson recalls, critics were alarmed by the fact that “the emergence of technologies for targeted killing using drones … has the possibility of disturbing and undermining a mostly tacit underpinning to the laws of war: an implied geography of war.” — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 851 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Drone warfare replaces combat’s duel with a hunter-prey hide-and-seek structure; Drone war turns strategic evaluation into disconnected body counts. — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 282; Drones transform war from combat-defined zones into pursuit-defined hunting grounds. — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 230 (+10 more)

Related

• Drone warfare replaces combat’s duel with a hunter-prey hide-and-seek structure (similarity 0.93)
• Drones transformed from surveillance eyes into weapons almost by chance. (similarity 0.92)
• Drones transform war from combat-defined zones into pursuit-defined hunting grounds. (similarity 0.92)
• Drones evolved from surveillance eyes into lethal hunter-killer weapons. (similarity 0.90)
• The Afghanistan war instantly validated drones as central to future US military strategy. (similarity 0.88)
• Drones resolve the guerrilla problem by depriving insurgents of any target to attack. (similarity 0.86)
• Drones add the remote control’s range to the weapon’s range. (similarity 0.84)
• Drone war turns strategic evaluation into disconnected body counts. (similarity 0.84)
• Drones multiplied ballistic reach by adding remote-control distance to weapon range (similarity 0.84)
• Armed drones make killing a priori one-directional, converting combat into slaughter. (similarity 0.83)
• Drone warfare pits unburdened machines against bodies bound by physical limits. (similarity 0.83)
• Drone surveillance transforms the panopticon from a punishing to an annihilating gaze. (similarity 0.83)
• Hunting, unlike combat, defines violence by the prey’s location (similarity 0.83)
• Unilateral drone warfare collapses war into a one-sided putting-to-death (similarity 0.81)
• Drones undermine the tacit geographic limits built into the laws of war (similarity 0.81)

Broader Connections

• Drones transform war from combat-defined zones into pursuit-defined hunting grounds. #corroborates (0.75) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 230
• Drones evolved from surveillance eyes into lethal hunter-killer weapons. #corroborates (0.70) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 108
• Drone war turns strategic evaluation into disconnected body counts. #expands (0.60) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 282
• Drones undermine the tacit geographic limits built into the laws of war #corroborates (0.60) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 851
• Drone warfare operates everywhere rather than only on defined battlefields #corroborates (0.55) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 827
• Drone surveillance transforms the panopticon from a punishing to an annihilating gaze. #expands (0.50)