Drone warfare adopts assassination ethics while refusing assassination’s self-sacrifice

Evidence

On the surface, of course, what he is saying is that it is morally necessary to accept the principle of one’s own exposure to risk in order to be able to kill in warfare. But, in truth, his palimpsest of citation is very well chosen, for how is it possible to justify homicide in a noncombat situation? For those seeking to justify such activities, there is only one place to turn: doctrines on political assassination. That is the lesson Walzer provides as a reader of Camus. On the surface, Walzer certainly does appear to make a clear misinterpretation, for he twists the nihilist maxim in order to turn it into the moral motto of classic warfare: “One cannot kill unless one is prepared to die.” However, at an underlying level, he is making another point: the agents of “war without risks” are in reality like assassins who use bombs to kill their targets; unlike idealistic terrorists, they have chosen to be ready to kill only if they are certain that themselves will not die. — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 509 (#contradicts, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Drone warfare creates a new ethical-political norm neither war nor peace; Drone warfare establishes a norm neither war nor peace via imperial immunity; Kamikaze and drone embody opposing economic and ethical regimes (+14 more)

Related

• Risk-free drone operators morally resemble assassins, not soldiers (similarity 0.94)
• Drone warfare creates a new ethical-political norm neither war nor peace (similarity 0.88)
• Drone warfare establishes a norm neither war nor peace via imperial immunity (similarity 0.87)
• Drones are morally justified by preventing one’s own casualties (similarity 0.86)
• Drone operators are called brave for risking their psychic rather than physical lives (similarity 0.86)
• The drone reconciles liberal security statehood with unrestricted waging of war. (similarity 0.85)
• Drone warfare creates a new configuration that is neither war nor peace (similarity 0.85)
• Drones’ necroethics embody a nationalism of self-preservation (similarity 0.85)
• Drone assassination reframes war as social defense through preventive security measures (similarity 0.84)
• The drone exemplifies the moral hazard of acting without bearing costs (similarity 0.84)
• Drone morality inverts ethics to make unendangered killing good (similarity 0.84)
• Drones create a moral hazard that shifts risk onto others. (similarity 0.83)
• Armed drones reshape sovereignty over a state’s own subjects, not just enemies (similarity 0.83)
• The drone made warfare absolutely unilateral, killing without risk of being killed (similarity 0.83)
• The drone’s impossibility of capture deliberately converts kill into the only option (similarity 0.82)

Broader Connections

• Risk-free drone operators morally resemble assassins, not soldiers #contradicts (0.55) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 509
• Drone warfare replaces combat’s duel with a hunter-prey hide-and-seek structure #complicates (0.30)