{"id":122364,"date":"2014-05-30T14:08:56","date_gmt":"2014-05-30T14:08:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dronewars.net\/?p=5624"},"modified":"2014-05-30T14:08:56","modified_gmt":"2014-05-30T14:08:56","slug":"book-review-unmanned-drone-warfare-and-global-security-by-ann-rogers-and-john-hill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/editorials\/book-review-unmanned-drone-warfare-and-global-security-by-ann-rogers-and-john-hill\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review. Unmanned: Drone Warfare and Global Security by Ann Rogers and John Hill"},"content":{"rendered":"

A version of this review originally appeared in Peace News<\/a><\/p>\n

\"unammed-rogershill\"<\/a>As writers and analysts for one of the military\u2019s key journals – Jane\u2019s Intelligence Review – Ann Rogers and John Hill, the authors of this new book on remote warfare have respectable military credentials. Nevertheless much of the analysis in this important and engaging overview of the drone wars would be recognised\u00a0by those with a very different perspective and understanding of the efficacy of military force.<\/p>\n

Chapter by chapter the book investigates the key aspects of the use of armed drones including tracing their history, the effect on military doctrine, ethical and legal issues, the impact on the ground and the push towards greater autonomy.<\/p>\n

Drones, the book contends are helping to normalise the use of States \u201ctargeting individuals with military-scale force\u201d and blurring the lines between law enforcement and military action giving rise to what the authors call nano-wars<\/em>. They state: \u201cthe serious battering of just war conventions by US drone strikes contributes to a new set of norms that are likely to be regressive to the causes of peace and international stability.\u201d<\/p>\n

The book argues that in certain cases just because drones can<\/em> be used to target individuals, they are<\/em> being used whether this is effective in achieving the overall goals of creating security or not. In fact the authors argue in Pakistan and Yemen not only are the strikes failing to isolate the insurgency from the population, they are antagonising populations and radicalising the \u201cpre-insurgent\u201d and it is perhaps the US who is becoming increasing isolated from the international community over the strikes.<\/p>\n

The authors clearly have some sympathy for the drone pilots arguing that when not being \u201cbored to death\u201d by watching hours of mind-numbing footage and castigated by their colleagues for merely being a \u201cchair force\u201d they also have to make life and death decisions which take a toll on their mental well-being. While some accounts from drone pilots<\/a> are beginning to leak out, the reality of the drone wars from the perspective of the drone pilot is still to be voiced.<\/p>\n

The authors state that their book aims to investigate the consequences of the use of armed drones not just on the battlefield but also on human society as a whole using the theories of Marshal McLuhan<\/a>.\u00a0 This would have made an valuable contribution to the growing literature on the use of drones and I would have liked to have seen much more of it in the book.\u00a0 The authors conclude that in McLuhan\u2019s terms the message of this new medium is that the drone gives the \u201ccapacity to intervene overseas with impunity to today\u2019s powers.\u201d<\/p>\n

This book is\u00a0a very readable overview of the issues surrounding the growing use of armed unmanned systems. The final question the book poses is whether\u00a0the rise in use of\u00a0drones is desirable in terms of global security. The authors\u00a0– along with\u00a0more and more people around the globe – conclude that they are not.<\/p>\n

Unmanned: Drone Warfare and Global Security by Ann Rogers and John Hill, <\/strong><\/em>Pluto Press, 2014, 192pp \u00a316.00<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a> \"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A version of this review originally appeared in Peace News As writers and analysts for one of the military’s key journals – Jane’s Intelligence Review – Ann Rogers and John Hill, the authors of this new book on remote warfare… Read More ›<\/a>\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1223,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[461],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-122364","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-editorials"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1223"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=122364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/122364\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=122364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=122364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=122364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}