Rethinking remote warfare

Remote Warfare is a product of the bellicose twenty-first century in which we live. Promises of a century, that would shun violence, revere international law, and outshine the darkness of the Cold War, have long since fallen by the wayside. Instead, the tragic events of 9/11, 2001, led the USA and its allies down the path to war and to the unforeseen consequences that transpired. As Sir Michael Howard argued back in 2006, ‘President Bush’s declaration of a “War Against Terror” was a war for which the United States claimed a hunter’s licence to use force anywhere in the world and the right to dispense with all the restraints of international law that they had done so much to create’ (Howard, 2006). This special issue analyses the legacies and emerging international implications of this ‘hunter’s licence’ and the remote military technologies/remote practices of Western warfare that were pioneered to fulfil it.

military leaders had first expected. Buoyed by the 'low-cost' success of the First Gulf War (1991) and the bloodless 'perfection' of the Kosovo Campaign (1999), the wars in both Iraq 2003 and Afghanistan 2001 were meant to be carbon copies of the so-called perfect and rapid wars that the USA had waged during the 1990s (Kennedy-Pipe et al. 2016). Contrary to such ambitions, however, the 2324 US military fatalities in Afghanistan and the 4,598 fatalities in Iraq signalled a post-9/11 period defined by military quagmires and political cul-de-sacs (Watson Institute 2021). Yet, from these miscalculations arose a renewed political approach to the practice of war. 1 The election of Barack Obama marked the start of this new approach and a new epoch in American warfare. President Obama was elected, in part, on the promise that he would draw the American people back from the expeditionary ground campaigns that had dented the public's appetite for the Global War on Terror (GWOT). As Simon Anglim (2020) has argued, Obama shifted "to a global counter-terrorist campaign utilising JSOC [Joint Special Operations Command] assets combined with drones, manned aircraft and local proxies" to strike terrorist networks around the world (Anglim 2020). Indeed, for Obama, the 'hunt to kill' chasing of high-profile targets with drones was a skill that he believed he had mastered. In 2013, Obama reportedly revealed to White House staff that he was "really good at killing people" (Halperin & Heilemann 2013). In fact, as conflicts raged in Somalia, the Philippines, Yemen, Libya, Pakistan, and across the Sahel (to name but a few regions of active and undeclared conflict), the USA engaged in a manner which was not defined by large-scale casualties to their own troops, but by these so-called remote operations, often spearheaded by drones. A political positive of this shift was that by not placing thousands of American troops in harms way, public awareness of, and concern for, the GWOT diminished. As the president made clear, through the deployment of 'Remote Warfare' means-such as armed drones, special forces, and the support of local actors-the typical decision-making barriers to the use of force became eroded because this new form of warfare did not attract "the public scrutiny that a troop deployment invites" (Obama 2013). It is hard to ascertain whether Obama regarded this lack of public engagement as a positive or a negative. Nevertheless, what is certain is that Remote Warfare decreased direct democratic public engagement with the war making process and it handed the president a way to wage wars with reduced critique, public interference, and democratic accountability.
Reflections by President Obama, made once he had left office, give more of an insight into the thinking behind the policies pioneered by his administration. The problem "with the drone programme" Obama confessed, "was not that it causes an inordinate amount of civilian casualties […], but that it starts giving you the illusion that it's not war […]. The machinery started becoming too easy" (Obama 2020).
Indeed, as former Secretary of Defence Robert Gates admitted, war had become seen by many in the Pentagon as "bloodless, painless, and odorless" during the Obama years (Gates, 2015). To meet 'imminent' national security threats around the globe, yet without having to declare war, or to mass mobilise for conflict, was certainly appealing for a president who was keenly aware that public approval rating for the GWOT had dropped from 80 per cent directly after 9/11, (Moore 2001) to a point where 53 per cent of the population thought the war was 'going badly' (Good 2011). Distance, a light-footprint, and remoteness were the panaceas he sought. Even in the face of mounting pressure to commit rising numbers of ground forces outside of Afghanistan, he resisted. In the final two years of his time in office, President Obama repeated the expression "no boots on the ground in Syria" 16 times, emphasizing the light-footprint, democratically detached, in-direct, limited, and remote character of the American military engagement (Korte 2015).
The overall operational success of Operation Inherent Resolve is still contested, however, the official narrative is one of a resounding 'Remote Warfare' victory (Fox, 2019). Indeed, the American-led military operation, that the Obama administration ultimately approved to defeat ISIS, worked across three core 'Remote Warfare' levels with at least 60 different coalition actors who were united in the aim of defeating ISIS. At one level you had the airpower strikes, described as "[d]eliberate and dynamic precision airstrikes" that targeted ISIS infrastructure (U.S. Dept. of Defense, n.d.). More than "15,000 coalition airstrikes destroyed enemy military capabilities and provided freedom of manoeuvre to regional security and partner forces" (U.S. Dept. of Defense, n.d.). Layer two was the employment of 'partners' to engage in the dangerous business of 'on the ground' war fighting. When compared to the earlier wars in Afghanistan (2001) and Iraq (2003), smaller numbers of US military personnel were sent out to Iraq and Syria to train and support Iraqi Security Forces and Syrian opposition groups. 2 As the US military's official account of the mission states "Iraqi and Syrian 'Train and Equip Funds' provided the necessary assets and capabilities to achieve increasingly higher levels of partner participation" (U.S. Dept. of Defense, n.d.). With training in place, and no doubt supplemented by USA and coalition special forces where needed, local partners forces waged a slow, costly, but ultimately successful offensive against ISIS (Crisis Group 2017). The harnessing of "10,000 fighting personnel comprised of police, counterterrorism units and local tribal fighters" in December 2015 to liberate the Iraqi city of Ramadi was one such operational success, whilst the 28-day fight for Fallujah in May/June 2016 was another (U.S. Dept. of Defense, n.d.). Finally, you had the intense battle for Mosul, which was deemed one of the war winning successes when it officially ended in July 2017 (although, unofficially, it was not entirely wrapped-up until mid-August 2017). As the mission report concluded "[c]oalition forces have defeated insurgent counterattacks, reclaimed thousands of square kilometres and significantly weakened the ISIS terror infrastructure in Iraq and Syria" (U.S. Dept. of Defense, n.d.). The motto here was "One Mission, Many Nations!" (U.S. Dept. of Defense, n.d.), and with 101 fatalities, the USA paid a relatively small price in blood and treasure compared to the wars that had waged almost two decades before (U.S. Dept. of Defense, 2021/Watson, 2022. 3 This approach to war is set to remain at the core of American and allied force deployment in the early-mid 2020s. 4 War from as much distance as possible, where local actors are supported by high-tech weapons and targeted training. Nevertheless, as with any form of warfare, its character does not remain unchanged for long as military and political leaders respond to new threats and an evolved strategic landscape. With this in mind, it is the purpose of this Special Issue to identify the changing, evolving, and emerging characteristics of Western Remote Warfare at a time when the practice is proliferating to a number of allied and hostile nations. A total of 113 nations now have a military drone programme and at least 65 non-state actors have access to weaponised drones (Rogers 2022, Gettinger, 2020., Chávez and Swed (2020). Although put together before the outbreak of Russia's offensive war against Ukraine in 2022, our collection of peer-reviewed journal articles analyses pertinent issues of concern that have only grown in importance since the recommencement of Russian hostilities.
Civilian casualties are one such issue. As Aditi Gupta asks in her contribution, titled 'Phenomenon and experience: searching for the civilian in an age of remote warfare', what/who is to be deemed a 'civilian' in the contested, complex, and fluid state of war? This is an important question when it comes to war in Ukraine, and when war is waged by the West in a 'Remote' fashion. As Gupta states, it becomes an issue of "what makes a civilian visible and deserving in the eyes of the international system-and so worthy of protection"? (Gupta 2021). As Gupta concludes, it is perhaps unsurprising that when war is waged at distance, and with reduced capacity for counting (let alone identifying casualties), it results in the "devastating and eroding impact of remote warfare on the civilian" (Gupta 2021). 3 An important point to clarify, and one pointed out in the peer-review process, is that the cost to local forces was drastically different. The Iraqi army was nearly bankrupt by the end of the battle of Mosul, and the toll on the local population was immense. Furthermore, the government of Iraq was teetering on financial insolvency by the time Mosul ended, putting a great deal of pressure and strain on the regime. 4 In the medium term, the 'Remote Warfare' modus operandi will be increasingly eroded in terms of military effectiveness by the rise of hostile drones and precision strike. See here for Middle East case study: Rogers, J. (2020). Future Threats: Military UAS, Terrorist Drones, and the Dangers of the Second Drone Age, NATO JAPCC, Retrieved from: https:// www. japcc. org/ chapt ers/c-uas-future-threa ts-milit aryuas-terro rist-drones-and-the-dange rs-of-the-second-drone-age/ Another cross-cutting issue addressed in this Special Issue concerns the erosion of International Law within the context of Remote Warfare. As Amelie Theussen outlines in "International law is dead, long live international law: the state practice of drone strikes", one of the broader issues in international relations is that the existing legal norms that govern the practices of nation states "are interpreted in widely diverging manners and seemingly put aside if not in the interest of the state in question" (Theussen 2021). Russia's manufactured Jus ad Bellum excuses for invading Ukraine, and its concerning Jus in Bello practices, only reinforce Theussen's claims. Yet, in the contribution to the Special Issue, Theussen focuses in on "the state practice of drone strikes beyond the paradigmatic case of the USA" to reassure us that the demise of international legal norms regulating the use of force may be overstated and there is hope for strengthening the rule of law (Theussen 2021). As Theussen's analysis reveals, international law might not be as "dead as the general discourse asserts, and can still serve to regulate state action" (Theussen 2021). A welcome note of optimism during dark times.
As this Special Issue progresses, however, the contributions increasingly focus in on the changing character of Remote Warfare, allowing us to rethink and reconsider established perceptions of remote Western force deployment. Specific attention is paid to the challenges posed by the growing number of Remote Warfare actors, the proliferation of Remote Warfare technologies, and the diffusion of Remote Warfare practices. For example, in "Light footprint-heavy destabilising impact in Niger: why the Western understanding of remote warfare needs to be reconsidered" Delina Goxho and I critically appraise how Remote Warfare has changed since being revived by the USA in the 2010s. Based on our fieldwork in Niger, "we highlight how the means and mechanisms of remote warfare have now proliferated to a plethora of state actors, with varying ambitions, who combine their [so-called] 'light footprint' to saturate distant zones of conflict and sovereign nations" (Rogers & Goxho 2022). In essence, our claim is that Remote Warfare, in the 2020s, is now waged by multiple allied nations in the same geographical region-yet in a disconnected manner with divergent end goals. As a result, it is no longer waged with a 'light-footprint' and instead saturates the regions concerned, applying significant pressure on local governance. We conclude that it is "no longer politically useful, militarily effective, or indeed academically accurate to consider remote warfare as 'light footprint' at all" as by doing so we misdescribe the character of Remote Warfare in the 2020s and misjudge the impact (both negative and positive) it can have upon the region it is deployed (Rogers & Goxho 2022).
These concerns about the proliferation of 'Remote Warfare' are shared by Shama Ams in his contribution, "Blurred lines: the convergence of military and civilian uses of AI & data use and its impact on liberal democracy". Departing from the analysis of Remote Warfare in regions at great geographical distance from the USA, Ams examines what happens when the military technologies used within Remote Warfare are supplied back to domestic police forces in the USA. Of particular interest to Ams is the diffusion of artificial intelligence, autonomous decision systems (ADS), and autonomous weapons systems (AWS) used within the drone strike intelligence gathering, target acquisition, and deployment process. As Ams argues, "[t] hese systems carry the risk of algorithmic bias due to flaws in underlying training data and its interpretation, difficulty in maintaining meaningful human control, the potential for more conflict due to fewer barriers to military engagement, and uncertainty in accountability for machine error" (Ams 2021). Representing one of the principal challenges of Remote Warfare, Ams presents his concerns about how "interchange between AI and data technologies for civilian and military purposes risks blurring the traditional legal and normative lines between these domains" (Ams 2021). As Ams concludes, "the trends toward integrating civilian and military law enforcement domains threaten to erode important normative and legal safeguards around human rights which are central to liberal democracy" (Ams 2021). In essence, by "blurring the lines between civilian and combatant in the eyes of law enforcement, one risks accelerating the retreat of liberal democracy globally, giving rise to authoritarian police states" (Ams 2021). It is from Ams, therefore, that we gain new spatial understandings of how citizens back home in the USA will increasingly be affected by technologies and practices of engagement that were pioneered thousands of miles away in wars waged in their name, yet in wars that they have little knowledge of or control over.
It is here that the Special Issue transitions towards contributions with a more critical take on Remote Warfare as both a practice and a concept. Kelly A. Grieco and J. Wesley Hutto (2021) open this discussion with their article, "Can drones coerce? The effects of remote aerial coercion in counterterrorism". Noting the limitations of Remote Warfare, Grieco and Hutto consider the effectiveness of drones-weapons that are integral to the fulfilment Remote Warfare-as instruments of coercion. Together they argue that remote control drones are fundamentally different from traditional airpower, "owing to changes in persistence, lethality, and relative risk" and that critically "these technological characteristics produce weaker coercive effects than often assumed" (Grieco & Hutto 2021) Put simply, Grieco and Hutto (2021) help us to consider the practical limitations of Remote Warfare when deployed in an attempt to effectively counter and coerce terrorist organisations. Indeed, it is with these technological drawbacks in mind that we turn to the work of Ash Rossiter.
For Rossiter, the most prominent feature of Western Remote Warfare in recent decades has been "the centrality of precision-strike systems and related capabilities-most notably unmanned platforms-for delivering lethal force with evergreater remoteness" (Rossiter 2021). Nevertheless, Rossiter argues that the "[c] omparative advantages derived from this 'remote warfare' are waning due to competitors' partial adoption of precision weapon systems and the development of countermeasures" (Rossiter 2021). Indeed, for Rossiter, it is the proliferation of Remote Warfare technologies (such as drones and precision missiles) that will be the undoing of the dominant Western military approach to the deployment of force. Military experts and technology enthusiasts in the West may argue the converse to this, proposing that "Artificial Intelligence (AI), properly harnessed, will soon resuscitate former advantages derived from remote warfare" (Rossiter 2021). Nevertheless, for Rossiter, these are false promises and misguided illusions. As he concludes, these technologies have "diminishing returns" and the assumptions underpinning the argument that AI will strengthen Remote Warfare "rest on weaker ground than is claimed" (Rossiter 2021). Indeed, it is with this critique of Remote Warfare in mind that we turn to our final article by Jean-Baptiste Jeangène Vilmer.
Last, but no means least, Jean-Baptist Jeangène Vilmer's article has been deliberately placed as the concluding article of the volume. This is because Vilmer's article, "Not so remote drone warfare", is both a compelling critique of the concept of 'Remote Warfare' and a pertinent reappraisal of the 'remoteness' of drone technologies. Thus, it is with the full body of the Special Issue in mind that we can begin to consider the veracity of the argument being made. Based on extensive interactions with French drone crews, and interviews conducted in 2020, Vilmer shows us "how drone warfare is not so new, not so distant, not so different, not so indifferent, and not so riskless" as its critics might depict (Vilmer 2021). Contrary to the distancing narrative present throughout this Special Issue (and the field more broadly), Vilmer takes on claims about 'distant and disconnected' drone pilots with a video-game mentality; he challenges the assumed differences between drone pilots and pilots of modern inhabited aircraft; and he explains how drone warfare is not as "riskless" as many claim, "at least compared to its most likely alternatives" (Vilmer 2021). Overall, therefore, as the Special Issue is drawn to a close, Vilmer leaves us with a characteristically thought-provoking argument to consider, that Remote Warfare and drone warfare are actually "not that remote" after all (Vilmer 2021).
Overall, it is hoped this Special Issue inspires debate and discussion around the established (and indeed growing) practice of Remote Warfare. At time of publication, this collection of articles joins a growing literature on Remote Warfare published by the like of by Srinjoy Bose, William Maley, and Paul Lushenko (2021), Rubrick Biegon, Vladimir Rauta & Tom Watts (2021) and The Intimacies of Remote Warfare project, run by Jolle Demmers and Lauren Gould within the Centre for Global Challenges at Utrecht University. Building upon the earlier work on scholars such as Michael Ignatieff, James Der Darian, Caroline Kennedy-Pipe, Nicholas Rengger, Abigail Watson, and Paul Rogers at the Remote-Control Project, together they are creating a welcome and long-overdue field of academic study that will help critique and mitigate the mistakes of Remote Warfare, while informing and improving political and military policy. It is hoped that this Special Issue adds to and strengthens this burgeoning field of study.
Finally, special thanks go to the Center for War Studies and Danish Institute for Advanced Study (SDU), the anonymous peer-reviewers who dedicated their time during the COVID pandemic, the editors of International Politics, Michael J. Williams and Costanza Musu, who patiently supported us throughout the editing process, and to Nuno Monteiro, the former Director of International Security Studies (ISS) at Yale University. Nuno sadly passed away in 2021, yet without his vision and support I would not have been able to hold the workshops, talks, and discussions at Yale that helped ignite the collaborations that led to this volume. It is for this reason I dedicate this Special Issue to Nuno Monteiro.
Funding Open access funding provided by Royal Danish Library.

Conflict of interest
The author certifies that they have no conflict of interest with regards to the subject matter or materials discussed in this manuscript.
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