Response

Marilyn Young claims that the technological advances of drones actually represent nothing new. As she states, “Aerial warfare of all sorts, when employed against countries without adequate air defences, as has frequently been the case, crosses borders and violates sovereignty with impunity.” But the point she misses here is that drones operate in a legal grey area outside of any formal declarations of war. Of course aerial warfare (and later missile technology) transformed the nature of state security through the 20th century. The importance of drones, however, comes from their provision of constant covert surveillance and strike capability wherever the location, be it in situations of war or peace (assuming that this distinction still holds). This is the significance of the 2002 drone strike against al Qaeda operators in the Yemen, which should not be understood as simply another form of aerial bombardment. An F-16 strike would have directly involved a US pilot. Using a robot (even a human guided robot) somehow distances the action from ‘regular warfare’. The implications of this shift are still being worked through, as Singer rightly discusses in his book.