The drone state aims to replace mobilized citizen bodies with mechanical agents.

Evidence

This citizenship of exposable lives has constituted an important—albeit not the sole—basis for a democratic critique of the power to wage war, not only in the institutional manner forecast by Kant, namely suffrage, but also as a vector of extraparliamentary mobilization in the antiwar movements of the twentieth century, However, the dronization of the armed forces, inasmuch as it reduces the military exposure of national lives to zero, tends to somewhat deactivate that critical attitude. It would nevertheless be a mistake to believe that an “aversion to losses” is the only possible motive and the cost/benefit calculation the only relevant rationality for the development of a critical voice in the face of state violence. — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 575 (#expands, via linked claim)

According to this view of military morality, to kill while exposing one’s own life is bad; to take lives without ever endangering one’s own is good. That first principle of drone necroethics is, paradoxically, vitalist. And it is in accordance with this logic that the drone can be said to be a “humanitarian” weapon: the humanitarian imperative is to save lives. And the drone does indeed save our lives. It is therefore a humanitarian technology. QED. — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 453 (#expands, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Dronization aims to replace soldier bodies with mechanical agents.; Drones deactivate democratic war critique by removing citizens’ exposure to death. — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 575; Drone morality inverts ethics to make unendangered killing good — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 453

Related

• Drone warfare deactivates the democratic critique rooted in exposable lives (similarity 0.93)
• Drones deactivate democratic war critique by removing citizens’ exposure to death. (similarity 0.92)
• Drone technology erodes the soldier’s defining scorn of death. (similarity 0.89)
• Drone morality inverts ethics to make unendangered killing good (similarity 0.89)
• Drone assassination reframes war as social defense through preventive security measures (similarity 0.89)
• Drones’ necroethics embody a nationalism of self-preservation (similarity 0.89)
• Drones lower political, economic, and ethical costs of war (similarity 0.88)
• Drones are morally justified by preventing one’s own casualties (similarity 0.87)
• The drone reconciles liberal security statehood with unrestricted waging of war. (similarity 0.87)
• Dronization aims to replace soldier bodies with mechanical agents. (similarity 0.87)
• Combat indifference to killing spread to accept civilian deaths by mistake (similarity 0.87)
• Protecting national lives through drones increases their social precariousness. (similarity 0.86)
• Eliminating reciprocal exposure to violence makes drones look like cowardly weapons. (similarity 0.86)
• Drone warfare establishes a norm neither war nor peace via imperial immunity (similarity 0.85)
• Armed drones reshape sovereignty over a state’s own subjects, not just enemies (similarity 0.85)

Broader Connections

• Dronization aims to replace soldier bodies with mechanical agents. #expands (0.85)
• Drones deactivate democratic war critique by removing citizens’ exposure to death. #expands (0.60) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 575
• Drone morality inverts ethics to make unendangered killing good #expands (0.50) — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 453