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Dead Slow: Unmanned Aerial Vehicles Loitering in Battlespace

University of Western Ontario, Canada

Unmanned (or Uninhabited) Aerial Vehicles are a key part of the American military's so-called revolution in military affairs (RMA) as practiced over Iraq. They are also part of the drive to shift agency away from humans and toward machines. This article considers the ways in which humans have, in calling on high technologies to distance them from what the military calls the "dull, the dirty, and the dangerous," hoped to avoid responsibility for murder in wartime. In examining the claims of weapons manufacturers and their military customers, the article focuses on the concept of "systems of systems" and the various outcomes such battlespace imaginings might have for human beings. The article concludes that the RMA entertains a fantasy of human agency while technological systems call out to and conjure up other technological systems that are possessed not only of their own logics but also purposes that are hidden and disturbing.

Key Words: war • unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) • revolution in military affairs (RMA)

Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, Vol. 25, No. 3, 195-214 (2005)
DOI: 10.1177/0270467605276097


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