Drone enlightenment : the colonial roots of remote warfare

Drone warfare raises far-reaching questions about responsibility, war, and sovereignty. Who can be held accountable for drone strikes? Do drones conduct wars of national territories and sovereign boundaries? What does the occupation of a land or people look like if there are no boots on the ground? Focusing specifically on the United States' use of killer drones during the War on Terror, Drone Enlightenment argues that this kind of warfare has its intellectual, ideological, and practical roots in the way the Enlightenment imagined moral agency, occupation, race, and sovereignty. As a consequence of seeing drone warfare as a creature of the Enlightenment, and through innovative readings of Hobbes, Locke, Grotius, Pufendorf, Barbeyrac, and Swift, the book also reevaluates the Enlightenment itself. Cover Page Title Page Copyright Page Contents Acknowledgments Introduction: Drone Warfare, Enlightenment, and Asymmetry 1. Sovereign (Ir)responsibility 2. Remote Occupation 3. Deferred Extermination Epilogue: Publicity and Mediation Notes Bibliography Index "This book argues that the rise of drone warfare is fundamentally a political and colonial problem, the origins of which stretch back to the Enlightenment"-- Provided by publisher