that maybe are less considered than others.

Military drones kill enemies. Together with innocent civilians, just like a lot of other, less modern weapons. In 2019, we all know that. But maybe we still don’t talk enough of how military drones also harm the states and soldiers that use them. Here are a few links, not even new, to start thinking about the effects of military drones on:

Laws, states reputation, and generally doing war

Drone attacks “subvert the rule of law [and] could haunt foreign policy for decades”. Because, if something is easier, “it will be done more often, with less consideration”. The use of drones can become “Tactics in search of a strategy”, that is using drones “because they are available and feel new and direct, rather than because they have a chance of swinging the outcome of a conflict”.

Drone “operators”

An obvious benefit of drones is that they do not put your troops in harm’s way. In physical harms, that is.

Drone Operators kill enemies halfway around the world by pushing a button, in the same “environment” of a video game, and immediately after drive their kids or partner to the movies. Are they Soldiers or Civilians?. Even whey they are “underpaid, very young” personnel, they are extremely likely (I would say “surely doomed”) to experience psychological trauma from exposure to endless killing missions. Or, as NPR put it, “The Warfare May Be Remote But The Trauma Is Real”.

Image sources:

• “End Drone Terror Killing”
• Getty, via NPR