The Politics and Ethics of Drone Bombing in its Historical Context Afxentis Afxentiou A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University of Brighton for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy October 2018 To Marianna, for her love, support and patience 2 ABSTRACT This thesis intervenes in current debates concerning the violence of armed drones, developing a historical perspective on what is predominantly understood to be a novel form of warfare. It argues that debates on drones overlook the important linkages between drone warfare and earlier regimes of violence from the air. On the basis of a historical analysis of drone warfare, it offers a critique of drone bombing that goes beyond the narrative of “targeted killings”. The first part of this dissertation, comprising Chapter 1, introduces the central problematic of the thesis by revealing the crucial differences between, on the one hand, a description of drones strikes drawn from testimonies of people living under drones and, on the other, an account of these strikes based on the targeting methodology the U.S. military follows. This part demonstrates that the frame of “targeted killings” fails to offer an adequate lens through which the multifaceted violent effects of drone bombing can be explained, understood and criticised. The two chapters that constitute the second part of this thesis employ a genealogical historical method, demonstrating that the broader violent effects wrought by drone strikes – which testimonies reveal, but current military doctrine effaces – are intrinsically bound up with the development of the air weapon. More specifically, Chapter 2 offers a detailed account of the emergence of air power theory and discusses the doctrine of “strategic bombing”. Chapter 3 examines how the British colonial territories functioned as a testing ground for assessing, adjusting and consolidating this doctrine. The third part brings this historical perspective to bear on discussions about drone warfare. Chapter 4 offers a critical review of the literature on drones, arguing that the tendency to frame drone warfare as a radically new form of armed violence forces critical thinking into the discursive straightjacket of the “targeted killings” narrative. Chapter 5 offers a critique of the “targeted killings” framework by inquiring into the manhunting doctrine, developed in recent years by U.S. military theorists. In the afterword to the thesis, it is argued that a critical account of the 3 violence of armed drones must be able to identify and defy discursive framings that work towards making the horror and destruction wrought by drones unobservable. Keywords: Drone Bombing, Air Power, Colonial Bombing, Targeted Killings, Manhunting 4 CONTENTS Abstract 3 Acknowledgements 6 Author’s Declaration 8 INTRODUCTION 9 Part 1: CHAPTER 1: Two Accounts of Drone Bombing: Life Under Drones and Targeting Methodology 27 Part 2: CHAPTER 2: The Unbearable “Morality” of the Bomber: The Emergence of Air Power Theory 61 CHAPTER 3: The Police Force of Civilisation: Colonial Air Bombing 100 Part 3: CHAPTER 4: Drone Warfare: Something Old, Somethng New, Something Borrowed 136 CHAPTER 5: The Hunter-Drone and the Emergence of Manhunting Theory 166 AFTERWORD 196 BIBLIOGRAPHY 198 5 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis has been a major part of my life in the last few years; lately, it even ended up being the only part. Despite whatever academic gratification and qualification it might or might not offer me, the most invaluable aspect of this thesis was that it brought me in contact with people who, each in their own way, are infinitely brighter, wiser, kinder and more academically gifted than what I would ever hope to be. It is by conversing with and being supported by these people that I was able to think and write this thesis. I want to use a few words thanking them, before moving on to what was made possible by their friendship and generous help. I thank my supervisors, Michael, Robin and Lucy for overseeing my doctoral work and for displaying a flawless balance of patience, insight and subtlety in their guidance. In addition, I would like to thank Robin and Michael for mentoring me in my first steps into academia – they have been the most tolerant of tutors. Michael should also be thanked for his dedication in instructing me that if I wished to expend energy challenging and contesting something, it probably should not be the English language. I hope that if he ever ends up quoting something I wrote, he does not feel compelled to use “[sic]”. I want also to thank people at the Humanities School for shaping my experience as a PhD and especially Bob for being a consistent source of encouragement. The PhD community in Brighton is a collective that I admire and wish I could stay part of for much longer. In my years as a member of that community I got the chance to meet some amazing human beings. Their friendship and support made my life in Brighton a unique experience. I am especially grateful to Dora, German, Giovanni, 6 Lars, Meg, Melina and Zeina who fought and keep fighting their doctoral struggles alongside me in the PhD room during all these years and emanated positive energy whenever I most needed it. I want to offer my separate thanks to Marina for teaching me how vital it is to be passionate about something – or, indeed, about everything. I extend special gratitude to Viktoria and Lars for their help in copy-editing the final draft and for making me believe that finishing was a viable option. Lars, in particular, has been the most steadfast of friends and an endless source of mock frustration since the very first day I stepped my foot on university grounds. His precociousness is formidable and he brought it to bear on all of our conversations. My thinking and, by extension, this thesis has been moulded by my four-year long dialogue with Lars. I offer my gratitude to my family and friends back home who, despite the distance that separates us, I always feel beside me. I thank my mother who while always worrying she never shows it and my father who taught me not to take civilisation too seriously because I am, in the final analysis, a villager from Cyprus. I thank my siblings and my cousins who are also my friends and they are always the first ones to see when at home. Finally, I want to extend my special gratitude to Marianna for being the most loving and caring person I know. Her contribution to this thesis, both material and moral, has been invaluable. Thank you for all the support and, importantly, the patience and fortitude you have shown during the last years. 7 AUTHOR’S DECLARATION I declare that the research contained in this thesis, unless otherwise formally indicated within the text, is the original work of the author. The thesis has not been previously submitted to this or any other university for a degree and does not incorporate any material already submitted for a degree. Afxentis Afxentiou 17th October 2018 8 INTRODUCTION For the last decade airborne drones have been the United States’ weapon of choice in its ongoing “War on Terror”, a global structure of violence in which civilians account for the largest share of victims.1 The proliferation of drones in the skies of “high-risk” areas such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Iraq, Yemen and, more recently, Syria has been met with a corresponding increase in commentaries that seek to comprehend, explain and, in some cases, criticise current drone wars. As such, armed drones and the violence they inflict have become as a central object of analysis in a number of academic disciplines. The fact that drone warfare keeps attracting the attention of a large and diverse body of literature suggests that it poses a profound problem in contemporary studies of state violence. Seeking to develop a better understanding of this form of armed violence and, particularly, of its relationship with previous practices of state violence from the air, this thesis offers a historical and theoretical critique of drone bombing and the dominant modes of its representation that are commonly shared in both its justification and critique. The Scope The scope of this thesis is both narrow and wide. It is narrow because it does not address one of the central and most persisting themes in contemporary debates about armed drones, namely, the fact that they are “unmanned” aerial weapons. Much of the scholarly response to the emergence of armed drones as a means of warfare has been overly preoccupied with this unmanned feature, which is often taken to be the most controversial aspect of current deployment of drones in “targeted killings” missions. In this context, the fact that drones take their human 1 Julian Borger, “US Air War under Trump: Increasingly Indiscriminate, Increasingly Opaque,” The Guardian, January 23, 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jan/23/us-air-wars- trump. 9 operatives completely out of physical harm’s way has also been a crucial reason as to why drone warfare is viewed as a fundamentally new form of armed conflict that breaks with previous traditions of military violence. While I think that the “unmanned” or “remote control” aspect of drones is problematic, primarily because it extends and sustains (already existing) conditions of asymmetrical violence, this thesis does not partake in the broader tendency that takes this aspect to be a cornerstone for an analysis of the drone as an instrument of violence.2 As such, the scope of this thesis is limited insofar as it does not seek to develop an account that focuses on the technical object – the drone – itself. However, as a result of these limits, the scope of my account is also broadened.