Removing risk reduces the soldier to a mere executioner in need of new victimhood

Evidence

Alfred de Vigny wrote, “The paid man, the soldier, is a glorious pauper, victim, and executioner.” A soldier wields violence and is also exposed to it; he is both an executioner and a victim. But what does he become once the very possibility of being exposed to violence is removed? The fatal conclusion is that he becomes a mere executioner. And that is why he must somehow continue to be a victim if he wishes to continue to be called a soldier. There is a difficulty, though: what could he be the victim of? The only possibility is that he is psychically the victim of having to act as an executioner. That is the only way he can be defined in his own eyes, as in those of society, as the fighter that he no longer is. — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 367 (#expands, 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)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Removing combat exposure reduces soldiers to mere executioners — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 367; Hyperprotecting soldiers shifts the burden of risk onto civilians — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 300; Right to kill depends on readiness to expose own soldiers (+1 more)

Related

• Hyperprotecting soldiers shifts the burden of risk onto civilians (similarity 0.91)
• Removing combat exposure reduces soldiers to mere executioners (similarity 0.90)
• Combat indifference to killing spread to accept civilian deaths by mistake (similarity 0.86)
• Military histories written from commander viewpoint erase soldiers’ humanity (similarity 0.86)
• Protecting national lives in war increases those lives’ social precariousness (similarity 0.83)
• The drone state aims to replace mobilized citizen bodies with mechanical agents. (similarity 0.82)
• Drone technology erodes the soldier’s defining scorn of death. (similarity 0.81)
• Just-war theorists reject prioritizing own soldiers’ safety over enemy civilians’ safety. (similarity 0.81)
• dronization of soldiers was a precondition for the pure drone (similarity 0.80)
• A state can prioritize its own soldiers’ lives over unlimited foreign civilian casualties. (similarity 0.80)
• Mass murder expanded beyond elite cadres to ordinary soldiers (similarity 0.80)
• Zero-risk warfare implies radical inequality in the value of lives (similarity 0.80)
• Preserving one’s own soldiers has become a quasi-absolute imperative excluding sacrifice. (similarity 0.79)
• Drones create a crisis in military ethos by contradicting traditional warrior values. (similarity 0.79)
• Soldiers’ lives were redefined as citizens deserving protection above enemy civilians. (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Removing combat exposure reduces soldiers to mere executioners #expands (0.85) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 367
• Right to kill depends on readiness to expose own soldiers #contradicts (0.70)
• Hyperprotecting soldiers shifts the burden of risk onto civilians #expands (0.60) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 300