Remote Control: Drones and the Operationalization of the State of Exception in Contemporary Warfare
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.26792/rbed.v13i1.75487Keywords:
drones armados, guerra ao terror, estado de exceção, biopolíticaAbstract
This article critically examines the role of armed drones as a central instrument of U.S. military strategy in the context of the War on Terror. It argues that drones are not merely a technological innovation, but rather part of a deeper transformation in contemporary forms of sovereignty, legality, and the management of life. Drawing on a theoretical-analytical approach grounded in the works of Giorgio Agamben, Michel Foucault, Judith Butler, and Grégoire Chamayou, the article explores how drones operate within a permanent state of exception, in which the distinction between legality and illegality becomes blurred and certain lives are produced as legitimate targets for elimination. The article is structured around three main axes: the relationship between drones, contemporary warfare, and sovereignty; the logic of the state of exception and the suspension of law; and the biopolitics of war, which defines who must live and who may die. It concludes that drones express a form of warlike governmentality that normalizes the remote and selective elimination of precarious lives under the guise of technological neutrality.
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