Cultural Politics of Targeted Killing

The deployment of remotely piloted air platforms - or drones - has become a defining feature of contemporary counter-insurgency operations. Scholarly analysis and public debate primarily focuses on two issues: the legality of targeted killing and whether the practice is effective at disrupting insurgency networks, and the intensive media and activist scrutiny of the policy processes through which targeted killing decisions are made. While this book will contribute to these ongoing discussions, the aim of the analysis is to demonstrate how the current social relations prevalent in liberal societies contain the potential for targeted killing as a normal rather than extraordinary practice.