The (non) event of state terror: drones and divine violence

ABSTRACT

In this article, we interrogate how the logic of the drone reconfigures state terrorism through the politics of (in)visibility. We argue that the everyday life of the drone can be both dull and disastrous, and thus demonstrates how state and non-state terror operate around different logics of visibility and witnessing. Enhanced sight and interpretation of data wrought by drones are distinct from the politicised act of witnessing. State terrorism, however, benefits from the privatisation and depoliticisation of the witnessing of the event through a minimisation of those who appear “visible”. Further, through the language of technology and security, drones help to classify the witnessing of the event. The event produces terror without witness, and without premonition, invoking the omnipresent power of god and thus blending divine retribution with profane catastrophe. We claim that state terror seeks to: (1) limit the exposure of the state to the act of witnessing and remembrance; and (2) through the ethos of privatisation, legalistically control the narrative of violence. In our conclusion, we discuss the implications of warfare in relation to (in)visibility, memory and drones.

KEYWORDS:

• Sacrifice
• drones
• violence
• terror
• subjectivity
• U.S. Military

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. “The Air Force Distributed Common Ground System (AF DCGS) is the Air Force’s primary intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) planning and direction, collection, processing and exploitation, analysis and dissemination (PCPAD) weapon system. The weapon system employs a global communications architecture that connects multiple intelligence platforms and sensors. Airmen assigned to AF DCGS produce actionable intelligence from data collected by a variety of sensors on the U-2, RQ-4 Global Hawk, MQ-1 Predator, MQ-9 Reaper and other ISR platforms”. (U.S. Air Force)

2. We acknowledge significant existing literature in this area, the details of which go beyond the scope of this article. Much has been written on how to characterise, historically and otherwise, the distinct features of sovereignty and governmentality. Given Butler’s allegiance to Foucault, particularly in Precarious Life, it is worth pointing out how Foucault’s absence of a genealogy of sovereignty troubles not only his writings on governmentality but similarly infects those Foucaultians, Butler included, who fail to adequately distinguish between pre-modern and democratic sovereignty (see Singer and Weir 2007/2008; for a more detailed discussion).

3. Although the early Foucault was largely disinterested in sovereignty, the archaeological writings did not foreground sovereignty thematically (Singer and Weir 2007), according to Singer and Weir (2007) he still nevertheless established some defining features of sovereignty: sovereignty concerns itself with the juridical subject, discontinuous extraction of taxes and labour, and the enactment of law. Sovereignty revels in the spectacular display of the monarchical sword; its object is the land, its power is exercised over a territory. Further, Foucault claims that sovereignty is a central form of power prior to the modern era, which it is associated with the state, articulated in terms of law.

4. Before we proceed, it is worth noting the caveat that anyone familiar with Benjamin’s body of work should deny any fascistic intent within his writing. Benjamin, a thinker committed to the intellectual pursuit of the cause of the common people, a champion of the oppressed, would undoubtedly withdraw from the following comparisons. However problematic they may be, a certain degree of ambiguity within Walter Benjamin’s “Critique on Violence” and the concept of divine law may in fact be informative here as presenting an avenue for further critique on the law-destroying capability of states moving into the “new modern” form of clandestine warfare.

5. “(M)an cannot, at any price, be said to coincide with the mere life in him, any more than it can be said to coincide with any other of his conditions and qualities”. (Benjamin 2004, 251)

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Sean Rupka

Sean Rupka is a PhD student at the Graduate Center, CUNY in New York. His research interests include: memory, trauma, subjectivity, critical security studies and the politics of belonging. His work currently focuses on intergenerational trauma and memory among groups such as Canadian indigenous peoples and the Jewish diaspora.

Bianca Baggiarini

Bianca Baggiarini is a PhD candidate in sociology at York University. Her research interests include: citizenship and sacrifice, critical security studies, and political sociology. Baggiarini’s PhD dissertation examines how states respond to a ‘crisis of military sacrifice’ in light of the neoliberal restructuring of capitalism. Thus, she is exploring the relations between military privatization and combat unmanning to expose how the historical link between citizenship and sacrifice is being undone within postmodern wars. Her recent work can be found in the Journal of International Political Theory (2015), St. Anthony’s International Review (2014), and in the edited volume, Gender and Private Security in Global Politics (Oxford University Press, 2015).