Drones abolish the condition of combat that makes combatants identifiable.

Evidence

I have tried to show that the precision-distinction thesis rests upon a cascade of confusions and sophisms that can and should first be challenged on principle. Contrary to the widespread legend, the drone is in reality related to a nondiscriminatory weapon of a new kind: by ruling out the possibility of combat, the drone destroys the very possibility of any clear differentiation between combatants and noncombatants. — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 490 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim
• XREF: connects to: Drones create a crisis in military ethos by contradicting traditional warrior values. — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 350; Drones are nondiscriminatory because excluding combat erases the combatant-noncombatant distinction. — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 490; Drone strikes outside declared battlefields violate international law — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 251 (+1 more)

Related

• Drones are nondiscriminatory because excluding combat erases the combatant-noncombatant distinction. (similarity 0.95)
• Drones create a crisis in military ethos by contradicting traditional warrior values. (similarity 0.86)
• Drones are less precise than rifles and grenades at discriminating targets. (similarity 0.86)
• Drone surveillance cannot reliably distinguish combatants from civilians (similarity 0.84)
• Drones resolve the guerrilla problem by depriving insurgents of any target to attack. (similarity 0.84)
• Eliminating reciprocal exposure to violence makes drones look like cowardly weapons. (similarity 0.84)
• Drones transform war from combat-defined zones into pursuit-defined hunting grounds. (similarity 0.83)
• Drone warfare leaves the mutual right to kill formally intact but substantively empty. (similarity 0.83)
• Drone technology severs visual discrimination from physical proximity to targets. (similarity 0.82)
• Armed drones make killing a priori one-directional, converting combat into slaughter. (similarity 0.82)
• Drone war turns strategic evaluation into disconnected body counts. (similarity 0.82)
• Drones produce constant terror because targets never know when they are tracked. (similarity 0.82)
• Drones add the remote control’s range to the weapon’s range. (similarity 0.82)
• Drones multiplied ballistic reach by adding remote-control distance to weapon range (similarity 0.82)
• Drones cannot comply with law-enforcement rules because they offer no graded force options (similarity 0.81)

Broader Connections

• Drones are nondiscriminatory because excluding combat erases the combatant-noncombatant distinction. #expands (0.85) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 490