Hyperprotecting soldiers shifts the burden of risk onto civilians

Evidence

However, the faults are not solely technical. They are also politico-strategic. In 1999, two Chinese strategists suggested that the American preference for “zero dead” offered the United States’ adversaries a rapid, easy, and low-cost means of thwarting the world’s greatest power: “These common American soldiers who should be on the battlefield have now become the most costly security in war, like precious china bowls that people are afraid to break. All of the opponents who have engaged in battle with the American military have probably mastered the secret of success—if you have no way of defeating this force, you should kill its rank and file soldiers.” The dronization of the armed forces further radicalizes this strategic fault. If the military withdraws from the battlefield, enemy violence will turn against targets that are easier to reach. Even if the soldiers are beyond reach, civilians are not. As one American soldier explains, “We must understand that attempts to armorize our force against all potential enemy threats … shifts the ‘burden of risk’ from a casualty-averse military force onto the populace. In doing so, we have lifted the burden from our own shoulders and placed it squarely upon those who do not possess the material resources to bear it—the civilian populace.” The paradox is that hyperprotection of military personnel tends to compromise the traditional social division of danger, in which soldiers are at risk and civilians are protected. By maximizing the protection of military lives and making the inviolability of its “safe zone” the mark of its power, a state that uses drones tends to divert reprisals toward its own population. — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 300

Categorization

• XREF: Core to the reader’s interest: the twisted logic of impunity — protecting combatants redirects violence at noncombatants, dissolving the soldier/civilian distinction. — connects to: Removing risk reduces the soldier to a mere executioner in need of new victimhood; Preserving pilot lives at altitude undermined accuracy and civilian protection; Protecting national lives in war increases those lives’ social precariousness (+9 more)
• SEED: Angle: the ‘safe zone’ doctrine as a generator of civilian casualties — how casualty-aversion produces its own body count.

Related

• Removing risk reduces the soldier to a mere executioner in need of new victimhood (similarity 0.91)
• Protecting national lives in war increases those lives’ social precariousness (similarity 0.89)
• US ground forces in Afghanistan and Iraq also privileged soldier protection over civilians. (similarity 0.87)
• Preserving pilot lives at altitude undermined accuracy and civilian protection (similarity 0.86)
• A state can prioritize its own soldiers’ lives over unlimited foreign civilian casualties. (similarity 0.86)
• Soldiers’ lives were redefined as citizens deserving protection above enemy civilians. (similarity 0.85)
• Protecting national lives through drones increases their social precariousness. (similarity 0.84)
• Just-war theorists reject prioritizing own soldiers’ safety over enemy civilians’ safety. (similarity 0.83)
• Drone assassination reframes war as social defense through preventive security measures (similarity 0.82)
• Combat indifference to killing spread to accept civilian deaths by mistake (similarity 0.82)
• The drone state aims to replace mobilized citizen bodies with mechanical agents. (similarity 0.81)
• The drone reconciles liberal security statehood with unrestricted waging of war. (similarity 0.81)
• Drones deactivate democratic war critique by removing citizens’ exposure to death. (similarity 0.80)
• NATO prioritized pilot lives over the civilians the operation claimed to protect (similarity 0.80)
• Drone technology erodes the soldier’s defining scorn of death. (similarity 0.80)

Broader Connections

• Soldiers’ lives were redefined as citizens deserving protection above enemy civilians. #expands (0.70) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 439
• US ground forces in Afghanistan and Iraq also privileged soldier protection over civilians. #exemplifies (0.70) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 436
• Human emotions protect civilians by restraining lethal military force #contradicts (0.60) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 1135
• Citizens gain political voice because their lives are exposed to war’s danger. #contradicts (0.50) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 572