Protecting national lives in war increases those lives’ social precariousness

Evidence

On the face of it, the drone appears as the solution to the central contradiction of the discourse of protective sovereignty: wage war without endangering the lives of one’s own subjects, preserve without loss, always protect. But here comes the bad news: the promise to preserve national lives goes hand in hand with the increased social vulnerability and precariousness of many of those lives. — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 607 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

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 (#expands, via linked claim)

Their aim was to revise, from top to bottom, the established principles underlying the ethics and law of armed conflicts. The most radical of their attacks concerned the principle of noncombatant immunity: “According to the ordinary conception underlying the distinction between combatants and non-combatants, the former have a lighter package of state duties than the latter. Consequently, the duty to minimize casualties among combatants during combat is last on the list of priorities… . We reject such conceptions because we consider them to be immoral. A combatant is a citizen in uniform… . His blood is as red and thick as that of citizens who are not in uniform. His life is as precious as the life of anyone else.” From this, one was supposed to conclude that the preservation of the lives of the subjects of the nation-state is the supreme duty, which must in all cases and at whatever cost be placed above the duty to minimize the losses of noncombatants in the enemy camp. This meant that in a war situation, minimizing risks for an Israeli soldier took precedence over the duty to minimize “collateral risks” for a child in Gaza. — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 439 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Protecting national lives through drones increases their social precariousness. — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 607; Hyperprotecting soldiers shifts the burden of risk onto civilians — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 300; Drone assassination reframes war as social defense through preventive security measures (+8 more)

Related

• Protecting national lives through drones increases their social precariousness. (similarity 0.93)
• Drone assassination reframes war as social defense through preventive security measures (similarity 0.90)
• Hyperprotecting soldiers shifts the burden of risk onto civilians (similarity 0.89)
• Soldiers’ lives were redefined as citizens deserving protection above enemy civilians. (similarity 0.86)
• Drones’ necroethics embody a nationalism of self-preservation (similarity 0.85)
• A state can prioritize its own soldiers’ lives over unlimited foreign civilian casualties. (similarity 0.85)
• Preserving pilot lives at altitude undermined accuracy and civilian protection (similarity 0.84)
• The drone state aims to replace mobilized citizen bodies with mechanical agents. (similarity 0.83)
• Removing risk reduces the soldier to a mere executioner in need of new victimhood (similarity 0.83)
• Drones deactivate democratic war critique by removing citizens’ exposure to death. (similarity 0.83)
• Drone warfare deactivates the democratic critique rooted in exposable lives (similarity 0.82)
• The drone reconciles liberal security statehood with unrestricted waging of war. (similarity 0.81)
• Preserving one’s own soldiers has become a quasi-absolute imperative excluding sacrifice. (similarity 0.81)
• Drone technology erodes the soldier’s defining scorn of death. (similarity 0.80)
• NATO prioritized pilot lives over the civilians the operation claimed to protect (similarity 0.80)

Broader Connections

• Protecting national lives through drones increases their social precariousness. #exemplifies (0.90) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 607
• Hyperprotecting soldiers shifts the burden of risk onto civilians #expands (0.85) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 300
• Drone assassination reframes war as social defense through preventive security measures #expands (0.70)
• Soldiers’ lives were redefined as citizens deserving protection above enemy civilians. #corroborates (0.70) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 439