Is Remote Warfare Moral?

Is Remote Warfare Moral?
Author: Joseph O Chapa
Publisher: PublicAffairs
Total Pages: 251
Release: 2022-07-05
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1541774469

America is at an important turning point. Remote warfare is not just a mainstay of post–9/11 wars, it is a harbinger of what lies ahead—a future of high-tech, artificial intelligence–enabled, and autonomous weapons systems that raise a host of new ethical questions. Most fundamentally, is remote warfare moral? And if so, why? Joseph O. Chapa, with unique credentials as Air Force officer, Predator pilot, and doctorate in moral philosophy, serves as our guide to understanding this future, able to engage in both the language of military operations and the language of moral philosophy. Through gripping accounts of remote pilots making life-and-death decisions and analysis of high-profile cases such as the killing of Iranian high government official General Qasem Soleimani, Chapa examines remote warfare within the context of the just war tradition, virtue, moral psychology, and moral responsibility. He develops the principles we should use to evaluate its morality, especially as pilots apply human judgment in morally complex combat situations. Moving on to the bigger picture, he examines how the morality of human decisions in remote war is situated within the broader moral context of US foreign policy and the future of warfare.

On Killing Remotely

On Killing Remotely
Author: Lieutenant Colonel Wayne Phelps
Publisher: Little, Brown
Total Pages: 342
Release: 2021-06-08
Genre: History
ISBN: 0316628271

A “can’t-miss for anyone interested in current military affairs,” On Killing Remotely reveals and explores the costs—to individual soldiers and to society—of the way we wage war today (Kirkus Reviews, starred). Throughout history society has determined specific rules of engagement between adversaries in armed conflict. With advances in technology, from armor to in the Middle Ages to nerve gas in World War I to weapons of mass destruction in our own time, the rules have constantly evolved. Today, when killing the enemy can seem palpably risk-free and tantamount to playing a violent video game, what constitutes warfare? What is the effect of remote combat on individual soldiers? And what are the unforeseen repercussions that could affect us all? Lt Col Wayne Phelps, former commander of a Remotely Piloted Aircraft unit, addresses these questions and many others as he tells the story of the men and women of today’s “chair force.” Exploring the ethics of remote military engagement, the misconceptions about PTSD among RPA operators, and the specter of military weaponry controlled by robots, his book is an urgent and compelling reminder that it should always be difficult to kill another human being lest we risk losing what makes us human.

The Ethics of Remote Warfare

The Ethics of Remote Warfare
Author: LILY. HAMOURTZIADOU
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2025-02-19
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781837721627

A look at war ethics in the age of drones and artificial intelligence. Can there be purely defensive or moral wars? In response to this question and others like it, this book offers unique insights into twenty-first-century warfare through the lenses of realism, militarism, and just war theory. This book challenges its readers to consider war from different perspectives and to reevaluate their views on the morality of war. Ethical approaches to war require that we don't value only the lives of 'our' people, as realism asserts; that we don't enforce our sense of justice with weapons, as militarism demands; that force is used only in self-defense, based on the principles of just war theory. The author explores the issue of civilian harm in war, questioning whether the use of so-called precision weapons--celebrated for minimizing risks to soldiers and civilians--and the rapidly developing technology of lethal autonomous weapons are increasing rather than decreasing civilian harm. In engaging with these questions, The Ethics of Remote Warfare highlights the need for new accountability mechanisms that reflect a sense of legal and moral justice.

Remote Warfare: Interdisciplinary Perspectives

Remote Warfare: Interdisciplinary Perspectives
Author: Alasdair McKay
Publisher:
Total Pages: 266
Release: 2021-02
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9781910814567

Modern warfare is becoming increasingly defined by distance. Today, many Western and non-Western states have shied away from deploying large numbers of their own troops to battlefields. Instead, they have limited themselves to supporting the frontline fighting of local and regional actors against non-state armed forces through the provision of intelligence, training, equipment and airpower. This is remote warfare, the dominant method of military engagement now employed by many states. Despite the increasing prevalence of this distinct form of military engagement, it remains an understudied subject and considerable gaps exist in the academic understanding of it. Bringing together writers from various backgrounds, this edited volume offers a critical enquiry into the use of remote warfare.

Drone Warfare

Drone Warfare
Author: Medea Benjamin
Publisher: Verso Books
Total Pages: 146
Release: 2013-05-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1781684758

Groundbreaking exposé of the rapid shift to robot warfare, by a leading antiwar activist. Drone Warfare is the first comprehensive analysis of one of the fastest growing—and most secretive—fronts in global conflict: the rise of robot warfare. In 2000, the Pentagon had fewer than fifty aerial drones; ten years later, it had a fleet of nearly 7,500, and the US Air Force now trains more drone “pilots” than bomber and fighter pilots combined. Drones are already a $5 billion business in the US alone. The human cost? Drone strikes have killed more than 200 children alone in Pakistan and Yemen. CODEPINK and Global Exchange cofounder Medea Benjamin provides the first extensive analysis of who is producing the drones, where they are being used, who controls these unmanned planes, and what are the legal and moral implications of their use. In vivid, readable style, this book also looks at what activists, lawyers, and scientists across the globe are doing to ground these weapons. Benjamin argues that the assassinations we are carrying out from the air will come back to haunt us when others start doing the same thing—to us.

Military Space Ethics

Military Space Ethics
Author: Nikki Coleman
Publisher:
Total Pages: 330
Release: 2022-02-14
Genre:
ISBN: 9781912440290

As space develops as a potential war fighting domain, so does the need to have ethical scrutiny. Since the 1960s there have been core space treaties that together with national laws, provide a clear framework for both military and civilian space activities, yet ethical questions still exist around space warfare. Is it appropriate to respond kinetically on earth to a threat in space? Does just war theory apply in space and does the remoteness of space lower or raise the threshold for armed conflicts? Will the creation of new space forces start a space arms race? New combat environments also create a number of new challenges, including whether future war in space will be conducted by robots or space marines, and how the dual-use nature of satellites will impact on their permissibility as targets in any future conflict. As technologies become more widespread, space may be threatened by the likes of non-state groups and rogue states, leading to a need to inhibit their movement in space. In space, differences are magnified; resources are especially scarce, risks are multiplied, and specialized medical care is a world away. The physical and psychological distance between combatants in modern warfare applies also to space and the impacts of remote warfare need to be considered including the potential for moral injury and psychological trauma. With greater military power comes greater responsibility and this responsibility is carried out at the end of a chain of decisions and technologies. This book's relevancy will not be lost on students at service academies and staff colleges in preparing them for the task of emphasizing ethical responsibility in space to those whom they will lead in the future.

A Theory of the Drone

A Theory of the Drone
Author: GrŽgoire Chamayou
Publisher: New Press, The
Total Pages: 306
Release: 2015-01-06
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1595589759

The Parisian research scholar and author of Manhunts offers a philosophical perspective on the role of drone technology in today's changing military environments and the implications of drone capabilities in enabling democratic choices. 12,500 first printing.

Reaper Force - Inside Britain's Drone Wars

Reaper Force - Inside Britain's Drone Wars
Author: Peter Lee
Publisher: Kings Road Publishing
Total Pages: 354
Release: 2018-10-04
Genre: History
ISBN: 1789460166

This unique insight into RAF Reaper operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria is based on unprecedented research access to the Reaper squadrons and personnel at RAF Waddington in Lincolnshire and Creech Air Force Base in Nevada, USA. The author has observed lethal missile strikes against Islamic State jihadists in Syria and Iraq alongside the crews involved. He has also conducted extensive interviews with Reaper pilots, sensor operators, mission intelligence coordinators, and spouses and partners. The result is an intimate portrait of the human aspect of remote air warfare in the twenty-first century.

Drone Warfare

Drone Warfare
Author: John Kaag
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 220
Release: 2014-07-17
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0745685358

Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 2015 One of the most significant and controversial developments in contemporary warfare is the use of unmanned aerial vehicles, commonly referred to as drones. In the last decade, US drone strikes have more than doubled and their deployment is transforming the way wars are fought across the globe. But how did drones claim such an important role in modern military planning? And how are they changing military strategy and the ethics of war and peace? What standards might effectively limit their use? Should there even be a limit? Drone warfare is the first book to engage fully with the political, legal, and ethical dimensions of UAVs. In it, political scientist Sarah Kreps and philosopher John Kaag discuss the extraordinary expansion of drone programs from the Cold War to the present day and their so-called effectiveness in conflict zones. Analysing the political implications of drone technology for foreign and domestic policy as well as public opinion, the authors go on to examine the strategic position of the United States - by far the worlds most prolific employer of drones - to argue that US military supremacy could be used to enshrine a new set of international agreements and treaties aimed at controlling the use of UAVs in the future.

Drones and Global Order

Drones and Global Order
Author: Paul Lushenko
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 213
Release: 2021-12-28
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1000528804

This book explores the implications of drone warfare for the legitimacy of global order. The literature on drone warfare has evolved from studying the proliferation of drones, to measuring their effectiveness, to exploring their legal, moral, and ethical impacts. These "three waves" of scholarship do not, however, address the implications of drone warfare for global order. This book fills the gap by contributing to a "fourth wave" of literature concerned with the trade-offs imposed by drone warfare for global order. The book draws on the "English School" of International Relations Theory, which is premised on the existence of a society of states bounded by common norms, values, and institutions, to argue that drone warfare imposes contradictions on the structural and normative pillars of global order. These consist of the structure of international society and diffusion of military capabilities, as well as the sovereign equality of states and laws of armed conflict. The book presents a typology of contradictions imposed by drone warfare within and across these axes that threaten the legitimacy of global order. This framework also suggests a confounding consequence of drone warfare that scholars have not hitherto explored rigorously: drone warfare can sometimes strengthen global order. The volume concludes by proposing a research agenda to reconcile the complex and often counter-intuitive impacts of drone warfare for global order. This book will be of considerable interest to students of security studies, global governance, and International Relations.