Predators, Reapers and post-heroic war - Professor Christian Enemark
Channel: ANU TV
Date: 2011-08-15

Professor Christian Enemark gives this lecture entitled 'Predators, reapers and post-heroic war ' at The Australian National University on 9 August 2011. This lecture was presented by the National Security College at ANU.

Are air strikes using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs or 'drones') changing the character of war? The United States has recently carried out drone strikes against targets inside Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Libya. 

The use of hunter-killer drones like the Predator and the Reaper is a means of engaging distant foes in a post-heroic, risk-free manner. As such, this mode of killing challenges traditional notions of what it means to be a combatant and the status of war as something morally distinguishable from other forms of violence. 

Arguably, the peculiar characteristic of war is that it is a potentially lethal contest in which one combatant using force against another does so in a relationship of mutual self-defence. Unlike the pilots of in-theatre aircraft, ground-based drone operators on the other side of the world experience no physical danger and are thus not required to exercise courage when using lethal force. Although the military profession is supposedly one whose defining and much-admired characteristic is risk-taking, drone operators manifest paradoxically as disembodied warriors. Is this an aberration or a transformation in military affairs?