Zero-loss discourse was promoted by arms manufacturers for profit.

Evidence

The key to this mutation was fundamentally economic, for “by making conscription and casualties less likely, capitalization turns arming and war into exercises of fiscal, rather then social, mobilization.” However, this dynamic of capitalization was not independent of political choices, which themselves were deeply intertwined with the interests of the military-industrial complex. Niklas Schörnig and Alexander Lembcke have shown, in this regard, how the ethical and political discourse of “zero losses” has been very effectively promoted by industrialists producing armaments. In 2002, one advertisement for the Boeing X-45A drone proclaimed, “Aircrews won’t have to be put at risk to complete the most dangerous of missions.” The two preoccupations—that of the industrialists wanting to sell new weapons, and that of politicians seeking to preserve their electoral capital—converged and interacted, each overdetermining the other. — Grégoire Chamayou, A Theory of the Drone, 599

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s interest in how the drone’s moral framing was manufactured, not discovered.