Low cost of drone warfare removes congressional restraint on military action

Evidence

Whether the risks of war are transferred to natives or to machines, Hobson’s views still hold. The dronization of the armed forces, just like any other procedure that externalizes those risks, alters the conditions of decision making in warfare. Because the threshold of recourse to violence is drastically lowered, violence tends to be seen as the default option for foreign policy. — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 586 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

That last point is very important. What is the purpose of the discourse about the drone’s necroethics? Its function is to diminish the reputational costs associated with the use of this weapon. Hence its strategic function in the political economy of warfare. The more “ethical” the weapon seems, the more socially acceptable it becomes and the more it becomes possible to use it. — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 590 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Drones lower political, economic, and ethical costs of war; The discourse of ethical drones strategically lowers the cost of using them. — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 590; Drone use lowers the threshold so violence becomes the default foreign policy option. — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 586 (+1 more)

Related

• Drone use lowers the threshold so violence becomes the default foreign policy option. (similarity 0.93)
• Drones lower political, economic, and ethical costs of war (similarity 0.92)
• The discourse of ethical drones strategically lowers the cost of using them. (similarity 0.90)
• The drone exemplifies the moral hazard of acting without bearing costs (similarity 0.89)
• The drone reconciles liberal security statehood with unrestricted waging of war. (similarity 0.85)
• Externalizing war risks makes violence the default policy option (similarity 0.84)
• Eliminating reciprocal exposure to violence makes drones look like cowardly weapons. (similarity 0.84)
• Armed drones reshape sovereignty over a state’s own subjects, not just enemies (similarity 0.84)
• Drones create a moral hazard that shifts risk onto others. (similarity 0.84)
• The armed drone resolves a centuries-old tension in political sovereignty. (similarity 0.84)
• The drone is a classic moral hazard example (similarity 0.83)
• The drone resolved a centuries-old contradiction in the theory of state sovereignty over war (similarity 0.83)
• The drone state aims to replace mobilized citizen bodies with mechanical agents. (similarity 0.83)
• Drone advocates came to believe their own claims of negligible collateral damage. (similarity 0.82)
• Drones deactivate democratic war critique by removing citizens’ exposure to death. (similarity 0.82)

Broader Connections

• The drone exemplifies the moral hazard of acting without bearing costs #corroborates (0.80)
• Drone use lowers the threshold so violence becomes the default foreign policy option. #corroborates (0.75) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 586
• The discourse of ethical drones strategically lowers the cost of using them. #corroborates (0.70) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 590