Critical Reflections on the Reality of Drone Warfare: Thinking with Jean Baudrillard

Abstract

In order to enter symmetrical relations of force in a war, the two opposing sides need to have some balance in technology (and overall power). When such balance is not there in a war, e.g. like the Gulf War in the early 1990s, it transforms into, what Jean Baudrillard calls, a non-war. In other words, he questions the occurrence or reality of a nonwar. Along the lines of Baudrillard‘s critique of the Gulf War, we register critique of the ongoing drone war on the Pakistan-Afghanistan borderland. We argue that the technological imbalance is even worse in this drone war. Accordingly, there is higher level of asymmetry in the relations of force, which has transfigured the nature/reality of this war. We apply and test a set of Baudrillard‘s concepts to explain this transfigured nature of the drone war.